Snooker faces a huge financial crisis after the sport's two biggest sponsors announced sumultaneously that they are terminating their contracts. 888.com will no longer sponsor the World Championship despite being just three years into a five-year deal, and Saga Insurance have also invoked a termination clause in their contract to back the prestigious Wembley Masters.
It means the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), the game's governing body, have a prize-money black hole of around £1.5million (Dh10.7m) to plug from their own resources if replacement sponsors cannot be found. The WPBSA broke the news in a letter to their players. It said: "Both companies have stated that the current economic climate is affecting marketing budgets in all industries and that market conditions had changed during the course of the agreements.
"We are currently out in the marketplace contacting potential sponsors through our sponsorship agency IMG. We remain optimistic that we will find new sponsors for both the World Championship and the Masters." The World Championship and Masters had been backed by the tobacco companies since the 1970s until the British government ban outlawed their continued sponsorship four years ago. Royal London Watches and Maplin Electronics are in their final year of sponsorship for the Grand Prix and UK Championship respectively while the Welsh Open has been without a backer since the tobacco ban.
There are two fully funded and sponsored ranking events in China but the first major event of the new season, the Northern Ireland Trophy, gets under way later this month without a big money backer. @Email:sports@thenational.ae
