The fact that the sport is receiving Saudi money with open arms is even less stunning than the news made at the end of January that Saudi Arabia will be joining the snooker fray as the newest chapter of its sportswashing initiative.
With its hands in an almost exponentially growing array of sporting events, including F1 races, tennis tournaments, boxing super-cards, lucrative horse races, Premier League club acquisitions, innovative golf tours, and upcoming international competitions like the Asian Games and football World Cups, the nation exhibits no signs of abating in its deliberate efforts to divert attention from allegations of human rights violations.
A complete ranking event in the Gulf state has been discussed for a few years, and an official announcement was made last month for a tournament including all 128 professional players to take place next season. Snooker is just the newest (and somewhat modest) piece of the puzzle. A Saudi partnership is all but unavoidable for a minor sport that is vying for funding from outside partners and attention in a crowded media landscape, moral dilemmas be damned.
Given Saudi Arabian influence in other sports, the genie has long since escaped the bottle and there’s no putting it back in. Thus, it is probably unfair to expect snooker to take a financially ruinous stand for virtuous reasons when almost no others have, although it would be nice if at least one sport did eventually opt for a principled rejection of the money to avoid a sportswashing clean sweep.
In case you missed it, this week, from March 4–6, in Riyadh, there will be the highly anticipated Riyadh Season World Masters of Snooker. Ten of the world’s best players, including O’Sullivan, Trump, and Luca Brecel, will compete for a £785,000 prize pool, of which £250k will go to the winner.
According to the press announcement from World Snooker, the sport’s governing body, “Every game will be played under World Snooker rules and regulations but with the introduction of an innovative new concept, a 23rd ball known as the Riyadh Season ball.” “If a player is on a maximum break to make it 167, this gold ball will be worth 20 points and can only be potted once all other balls have been successfully cleared from the table.
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