2024-03-05 18:32:17
Snooker has been among the sports facing criticism for using huge financial resources to move major events to Arab countries despite attracting little interest from fans there. The supporters call the ongoing World Masters of Snooker in Riyadh a complete embarrassment.
Fans of billiards couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw footage from the capital of Saudi Arabia.
The prestigious event, which is attended by the best players in the world, was already described by the organizers as completely sold out on Saturday.
But the opening match between the Chinese Ting Tyun-chue and the local (!) Omar Alajlani was watched by only a handful of spectators in the hall.
“This snooker tournament in Saudi Arabia is a complete mess,” wrote one fan on the X social network.
“I see that the hall is packed. I think the Saudis themselves are boycotting the event,” the SnookerBlog account responded with a smiley face.
The Riyadh Masters has been dogged by controversy since its inception. Although the head of the World Snooker Tour (WST) Steve Dawson called the holding of the tournament a “huge breakthrough”, criticism is pouring in from all over the world that Saudi Arabia is just continuing with sportswashing.
This is the name given to an activity that uses sport to improve a tarnished reputation. Officials of Saudi Arabia, which is often accused of violating human rights, reject this.
In recent years, however, the country has spent huge sums on sports investments and poured money into football, Formula 1, golf, tennis and boxing.
“It was only a matter of time before the huge sports washing machine of Saudi Arabia absorbed snooker after other important sports,” said Peter Frankental, head of the human rights organization Amnesty International.
And he called on the top players that they should not hesitate to speak out about human rights violations in Riyadh.
However, they obviously have no intention of doing anything like that. “Look… the Saudis can do whatever they want. They are powerful. All the other sports are doing something in Saudi Arabia, so it would be great to get there,” said snooker icon and seven-time world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan.
“If we only worked with countries with perfect human rights records, we would have very, very little to choose from. We wouldn’t even work with the UK,” said Shaun Murphy, another world champion, behind the WST.
The organizers of the first ever professional snooker tournament in Saudi Arabia also excited the fans by adding two more players to the event, which was originally intended for the eight best players in the world plus two “wild cards” from the Middle East: China’s Ting Tyun -chue and Scotsman John Higgins.
But fans were even more disillusioned by the experiment with the so-called golden ball. If one of the players reaches the maximum value of 147 points, he will be able to “sink” even the gold-colored ball – and if he succeeds, he will receive an extra portion of 20 points and a bonus of half a million dollars.
Luke Barker, the respected head of sports reporters at the British newspaper The Independent, described the introduction of similar innovations as complete nonsense, a “ridiculous gimmick” and “a sign of a desperate sport”.
“Where does this stop. Why not make the center of the target 100 points in darts? Maybe in tennis there could be an ace for two points to spare the fans the annoying exchanges that spoil the fun the fans obviously want,” Barker wrote wryly.