The 2025 Saudi Masters starts in Jeddah in less than two days, with a massive 500000 pounds prize money foe the winner … one could imagine that the players would be happy, although, of course some other sports offer much more and the distribution of the prize money in snooker is way too to heavy. A lot of lower ranked players do really struggle, that can’t be denied.

Still … the news today, shared by the BBC, caught me completely by surprise:

New association gives players ‘stronger voice’ – Higgins

Dan Roan Sports editor – Jamie Broughton BBC 5 Live snooker reporter

• 6 August 2025, 00:01 BST

A new independent association for leading snooker players will give them “a stronger voice” and could be “massive” for the growth of the game, according to its chairman John Higgins.

The four-time world champion is a director of the Professional Snooker Players Association (PSPA), which says it is launching to “champion the sport”.

“We feel as though we’ve not been listened to as we should have been in recent years“, Higgins told BBC Sport.

“The game has not moved forward with the times compared to other top sports.

“Snooker deserves a strong, independent players’ association that stands for fairness, transparency, and progress.”

The association also claims the governance of snooker “should factor in more of the views of the players“.

It has vowed to foster a “collaborative relationship” with the sport’s authorities, including the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), the existing WPBSA Players’ Board, and World Snooker Tour “to enhance the sport’s future, while safeguarding player welfare and commercial interests“.

The PSPA says it has established a players board comprising of Judd Trump, Kyren Wilson, Mark Selby, Barry Hawkins, Shaun Murphy, Ali Carter, Gary Wilson, Stuart Bingham, Jack Lisowski, Stephen Maguire, Mark Allen, Ryan Day and Joe Perry. Another player – Matthew Selt – has been appointed a director, alongside lawyers Ben Rees and Mark Kenkre.

The association also claims that seven-time world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan has agreed to become a member, along with Chinese stars Ding Junhui and Xiao Guodong.

“I’ve had lots of discussions with Ronnie” said Higgins. “He’s really excited about it, so it’s full steam ahead.”

The fact so many of the top players are behind the new body suggests some feel they do not have enough say in the running of the World Snooker Tour (WST), particularly the commercial side.

During the 2024 World Championship, the headlines at the Crucible were dominated by talk of a potential breakaway tour. This came after the game’s top players were approached to play in lucrative events in China and North America as part of a potential breakaway circuit.

Professional players sign a contract which does not allow them to compete in any outside events while WST tournaments are being played, unless they are events sanctioned by the WST, although players have recently negotiated more flexibility.

However, the WST has been increasing the amount of prize money in the game, and is preparing to stage the sport’s “fourth major” in Saudi Arabia with a prize pot of more than £2m. The second Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters will take place later this week in Jeddah.

The WPBSA’s own players’ body was formed in 2020, and the governing body says it has “a specific mandate to act in the collective best interest of members in relation to welfare and issues affecting the professional game.”

It says that it “acts as a channel for member concerns and provides a platform whereby issues surrounding their wellbeing can be raised at the highest levels by the WPBSA Players Board.”

The PSPA says it has been formed with expert guidance from leading sports law professionals, and that its key objectives include legal and commercial support to protect players’ rights in sponsorship, broadcasting, and contractual matters

So… let’s be clear about what this is NOT. It’s not a breakaway tour. This is a player association created to give the players more power than the current WPBSA/WST structures allow them to exert. It is interesting that John Higgins is leading this. He’s not exactly someone who is perceive as a “rebel” and he has the support of a lot of top players. Interestingly Ronnie and Ding are somewhat sitting on the fence… ¹

At the heart of this development sits the fact that players are NOT WST or WPBSA employees. They are self-employed with a temporary job agreement with WST/WPBSA. That job agreement is rather restrictive when it comes to what they can do “outside” the agreement. They can’t, for instance, play in any snooker event, even exhibitions, when one of the WST events is on, and even if they are not involved in it, unless they get WST “green light” … which apparently isn’t that easy to get. We have seen that last season when top players got in trouble for playing “high profile” exhibitions in Asia, whilst qualifiers, which they were exempt from, were underway in the UK. How many of those who went to watch those exhibitions would actually have watched the streamed qualifiers if the exhibitions had not been organised? Very, very few IMO. How many “new fans” do these streamed qualifiers generate? Very, very few if any at all². On the other hand, high-profile exhibitions and tournaments with big names in them do attract new fans.

1. that hasn’t stopped some media to make Ronnie the headline of their piece about this development … click-baits are clearly more important to them than truth and accuracy. ↩︎
2. quite the opposite. A lot of those qualifying matches are turgid affairs. They are very important to the players involved with a lot at stake for them, and they will interest hard-core fans who are deeply into the game … but not young kids nor casual viewers. ↩︎