Snooker enjoys unprecedented popularity in the world, but the sport’s hottest coach name Stephen Feeney is worried.
The concern is the young players who cannot be found at the top of the world rankings.
– There is a big structural problem in the sport, English coach Feeney says.
Urheilu has reached Feeney from his home in Norwich. From there, one of snooker’s most respected coaches heads to Sheffield to help his coaches in the World Championships starting on Saturday.
Feeney is known for his innovation, which has caused the snooker elite to abandon the aiming technique that has been in use for over a hundred years. On Friday, Feeney has a training session with the sport’s superstar on his calendar Ronnie O’Sullivan’s with.
At the age of 47, O’Sullivan is defending the world championship and is number one in the world rankings. The champion made his debut at the World Championships exactly 30 years ago. O’Sullivan is not the only man of his age who is still at the top of snooker, but he gets fire support from several of his peers who turned professional in the 1990s.
Are the snooker stars in their forties better players than the younger generation who have been trying to break through without success for well over a decade? According to Feeney, this is not the case.
– The sport has not taken care of its young people. They need to play much better than O’Sullivan’s generation had to when they were young. The pressure on young people is enormous, says Feeney.
According to Feeney, the international umbrella organization World Snooker is the main culprit for the problems faced by young players, which are revealed in this article.
A historic year
32 players qualify for the Snooker World Championship, of which the 16 best in the world statistics qualify for the tournament directly. The remaining 16 qualified for the main event of the season.
The winner of the World Cup tournament will almost certainly be found among the ranked players, i.e. the 16 best in the world ranking. A player who came from the qualifiers has reached the championship only three times since 1969, since 1969, when the World Championships have been played in a tournament format.
The average age of the players placed in the games starting on Saturday is 39.4 years.
The top 16 in the world rankings have claimed a direct spot at the pinnacle of the snooker season since 1982. Never before has the average age been as high as it is now.
This year, eight of the 16 ranked players are 40 years old or older. These eight players would meet the age criteria for the World Cup for veterans. When those who made it through the qualifiers are included, this year there are 11 players in their forties in the main series of 32 players.
Even in the 1990s, snooker was considered a game for young men. There is nothing left of that image.
Stuart Bingham shocked the snooker crowd in 2015 when, at the age of 39, he became the oldest world champion in 37 years. Mark Williams did one better in 2018 by winning at the Crucible at the age of 43.
O’Sullivan was victorious at the age of 44 in 2020, and last year he became the oldest world champion in snooker history at the age of 46. The three masters mentioned above are Feeney’s students.
Then in 2010, only one player has won the world championship under the age of 30. Judd Trump managed the trick in 2019 just before his 30th birthday.
A few young players who debuted in the last decade have picked up individual victories in major tournaments, but none of them have been able to establish their place at the absolute top. It has come the closest to lasting success Kyren Wilsonwho is still exhausted by winning a big tournament.
– Young players face big obstacles that go back to the tour’s playing system, Feeney says and points to the tiered chart.
Unfair system
The tiered chart means the playing system of the professional tour, where snooker players with low rankings play against each other. In the next round, the winners of these matches will face fellow players who are a step higher in the ranking.
When known as the snooker dinosaurs O’Sullivan, Williams and John Higgins debuted as professionals in 1992, anyone could purchase a tour license. There were 500–600 players each year. In order to play against the top 16 stars, players had to climb up the tiered chart and win up to ten matches.
For example, O’Sullivan played 76 qualifying matches in his debut season, of which he won 74. However, O’Sullivan was not successful in the televised main series, advancing only once to the top 16, the quarterfinals.
At the turn of the millennium, the size of the tour was limited to 128 players. Before 2010, the umbrella organization continued reforms by removing the tiered chart completely, except for the World Cup. It meant that the tops entered the games from the first rounds. This has caused difficulties for many newcomers.
As the statistics above show, for many players the jump from the snooker pool to the deep end proved too difficult and they dropped out of the tour.
– In the current system, young newcomers must be top 16 level from the start. Other species have a much healthier growing medium with room for development, says Feeney.
The strong get stronger
The rise of young people to the top of the world is also hampered by the snooker calendar.
The world statistics are based on the prize money that players can earn from 15 ranking competitions. Three of these tournaments stand out from the rest.
From the beginning of the season, the 32 players who collected the most prize money get to the World Grand Prix held in January. The money distributed from the tournament is calculated in the world statistics, the best 16 of which will go to the Players Championship to be played in February. The income from this will also be added to the season’s world statistics.
In addition to these two tournaments, the eight players who won the most money claim the right to play in the Tour Championship tournament organized in March – and once again the world statistics live in such a way that the strong only get stronger.
– I don’t like that these tournaments have a double effect on the world ranking. If a player doesn’t make it to the 32-player Grand Prix, it has a disproportionate impact on the rest of the season, Feeney says.
Inequality is further strengthened by the fact that the umbrella organization decided to use a tiered scheme this season not only in the World Cup but also in the second biggest tournament of the season, the UK Championship.
If the 16 seeded players won their first match at the UK Championship against a lower-ranked player, they would receive £15,000 for their winnings.
As the example below shows, that’s more than a lower-ranked player would have amassed with good performances before the UK Championship.
– I definitely support the staggered chart, but it must be used all the time and not only in the two most important races of the season. In the current mixed system, it only has a distorting effect, says Feeney.
Amateur game abandoned
Feeney is most disappointed that the umbrella organization has focused only on the professional tour and neglected the development of the amateur game. The money distributed in tournaments has only been channeled into professional play.
– In the 1990s, the best amateurs could earn sums that are almost 100,000 euros in today’s money. Nowadays, as an amateur, the result is rather debt imprisonment, says Feeney.
The English coach feels that the umbrella organization World Snooker should reorganize its activities under the conditions of the amateur game. The age group represented by O’Sullivan, Williams and Higgins cannot support the game indefinitely, but snooker bosses have to feverishly think about the time after the golden generation.
Feeney emphasizes that he does not want the aforementioned stars to end their careers. Vice versa. He would be willing to give them a perpetual franchise.
– Enjoy their game as long as you can. They represent quality and offer the best learning about the sport.
However, Feeney emphasizes that new blood should be added to the winners as quickly as possible.
– The average age increasing year by year means that the sport has a problem. In order to change something, I would create a tour for amateurs, where the 64 best players would be eliminated from professional status against the 64 weakest players on the pro tour. In addition, the qualification system must be changed to be more humane than the current one.
The plight of young players is the sum of the factors mentioned above: the removal of the tiered chart, the impact of competitions that further strengthen the strong ones on the world rankings, and the downgraded amateur game.
The old generation of players has also changed from year to year in a more professional direction when it comes to fitness and nutritional factors and the utilization of coaching knowledge. With that, the snooker club has been able to witness only individual shooting stars of promising young people.
– The global sport should have a world-class development program for juniors and a world-class amateur tour. Snooker doesn’t have this, Feeney states.