GLOBAL SNOOKER NEWS

The WSA have announced provisional calendar dates for the 2004-5 season, together with a reduced prize fund and more stringent cuts for 2005-6.

World Snooker confirmed the barely concealed secret that the Main Tour will be cut to 64 players in 2005-6 and the Challenge Tour will disappear altogether.

Replacing that will be a qualifying school, open to 48 players who will vie for 8 promotion slots to the slimmed down Main Tour. 8 players will drop from the Main Tour into the qualifying school and there will have to face 24 players from national associations, plus another 16 from various sources, including Pontins new Under 21 series and a new Pontins Open series which will run in 2005-6.

Prize funds are also down in 2004-5. Excluding the Masters, still seeking a new sponsor, and the World Championship, which carries the last year of permitted sponsorship from Embassy, the remaining seven ranking events attract a total prize fund of £1,975,000, with just two of the events currently having a sponsor's name to them - the Travis Perkins UK Championship and the Citywest irish Masters.

The UK Championship carries a premium prize pot of £500,000 with £70,000 awaiting the winner. But the three, as yet untitled, ranking events offer a total fund of only £200,000 each with £30,000 for the winner.

The Grand Prix, which reverts to its old title after two seasons as the LG Cup, will be the season's first event. Running in the Guild Hall, Preston from 2-10 October with full BBC coverage.

The structure is new though, and for only this event. In a throw back to a seeding system not used for several years, the Top 32 will play 32 qualifiers in round one of the event, a structure which may come as something of a shock to the top 16 who have been protected from such an early buffeting in recent seasons. It is suggested that the BBC requested the format, but it may well serve to soften up the players in preparation for 2005-6, when, with only 64 players on tour, the likely format will be 32 against 32.

If the players delve into the small print of their packs, they'll find that the pre-tv high break prize has disappeared, a source of useful income to lower ranked players, and that all players will be required to give over one of their two logo spots to a logo enforced by WSA. This will leave the players with only one saleable slot, which could have a considerable impact on the top players' earning power.**

The leading players will be also be unhappy that their minimum earnings guarantees, discounting the Masters and the World Championship, are down to £23,600 and further bad news will hit them with the loss of the proposed World Matchplay event, which has been cancelled after promoter Barry Hearn could not give Sky TV a guarantee that all Top 8 players, including World Champion and World No. One Ronnie O'Sullivan would appear in the event.

But it's not all doom, gloom and disaster. Ensuing seasons promise more events, new venues and new sponsors. World Snooker's Sir Rodney Walker assures the players "there is enormous interest in our sport in this country", by which Global Snooker assumes he means England, presumably having not yet grasped the concept that England is not at the centre of the snooker universe, far from it!

The Chairman of World Snooker assures the members that "Progress is being made in many areas and potential sponsors are once again showing interest n the sport and I anticipate a significant number of announcements in the near future.

"Our running costs are now under control and our commercial team is working hard to create new initiatives. One of the most exciting is the growing worldwide interest in snooker; an area that we believe will bring enormous economic benefits to the players."

It is to be hoped that the 'worldwide interest' will be better served than previously in terms of receiving television coverage of events, and tours and tournaments to a wide spread of countries, starved of both live and televised snooker.

Europe-wide coverage of snooker by Eurosport has sparked off huge interest right across Europe, with established countries riding on the back of a new mini-boom and new snooker countries staging tournaments, opening clubs and entering international competitions, for the first time.

One of World Snooker's main focus areas appears to be China. A new partnership has been struck with Sohu, a major Chinese  language internet site, boasting up to 48 million hits a day and in September Peter Ebdon, Paul Hunter and Ding Junhui will take part in a Volkswagen sponsored Chinese Challenge Match. One of the as yet unspecified 'Ranking Events' is likely to be staged in China, but details have yet to be confirmed.

The ranking points structure remains largely unchanged, except for the Grand Prix. but the players newly promoted to the Main Tour this season, without any previous points, will no longer be allocated starter points. Instead they will be awarded double points in all events. On paper this would appear to be a fairer system, as they will no longer be penalised by being allocated the lowest points of the worst player left on tour, but will have the chance in their own hands to earn points through winning.

With  40 players due to disappear into snooker's black hole at the end of the season, the chances of coming from nowhere up to number 56 would seem daunting. But they will stand a better chance than the Challenge Tour players. 128 players line up on the starting grid on 24 September. Of those six will gain promotion to the Main Tour in 2005-6 and 122 will return to the "amateur" ranks.

The upside of this is that the National Governing Bodies, predominantly the UK and Ireland, will get the largest influx of players back into their events, since the game was thrown open in 1991, a year which signalled the near-death of a thriving pro-am structure and a high standard across the Amateur game.

**Following lobbying by snooker management groups the WSA have relented on this rule and players will now be allowed to utilise two logo patches.

RESULTS

RESOURCES: GSC CALENDAR