HEARN WILL BAN REBELS
Stars must sign up to the tour Valtteri is ready to mix it
®
SNOOKER supremo Barry Hearn has added some stick to last week’s carrot to get stars onside over player contracts.
Ronnie O’Sullivan, John Higgins and Neil Robertson attacked the scheme during the Betfred World Championship.
Players have grumbled in public and private over media duties, lack of payment for signing up and restrictions on playing activity outside tour events.
A booming market in China has seen World Snooker chief Hearn (inset) acknowledge the possibility of promoters trying to lure players for a rebel series.
Among concessions to players are a waiving of their entry fees, worth around £5,000 a year each.
And prize money – only £3.5m seven years ago when Hearn took over – will rise to £12.5m next season.
A potentially huge digital rights deal is close to being done in China, which could fuel a prize-money explosion.
But Hearn has also spelled out the risks of not signing up, or being seduced by promises of ‘easy money’ in China.
Hearn said: “If players get a big-money offer and take it, they’d be off the tour.
“You can never stop someone who wants to go outside. It happened with the Kerry Packer tour in cricket. But they know while I’m here that will be the end of their professional snooker career.
“Not playing in the World Championship would be a huge deterrent. Players going outside their contract would be suspended the day they appeared in anything else.
“The sensible thing is Chinese promoters come to me, slap the money down with me, it gets sanctioned, and the money goes to the players anyway. Most want an easy life.
“Don’t take me on – if I lose, I lose, it makes no difference to me. I am black and white. You are with me, I’ll go in to bat for you – you are against me, you have got a problem.” ®