World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association


The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, based in Bristol, the United Kingdom, is the governing body of professional snooker and English billiards. It owns and publishes the official rules of the two sports and engages in promotional activities. The Professional Billiard Players Association was founded in 1946, and, after some years of inactivity, was revived in 1968 and renamed the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association in 1970.
It owns a 26% share of World Snooker, which organises the professional Snooker ranking circuit events. It also supports World Women's Snooker and World Disability Billiards and Snooker, and English billiards through World Billiards

Overview

According to its financial statements for the year ending 30 June 2019, the principal activities of the WPBSA are "the governance of professional snooker and billiards through the regulation and application of the rules of the association, the development of snooker and billiards as a sport and the sanctioning of the Professional Snooker Tour". The governing body for the non-professional games is the International Billiards and Snooker Federation.
The WPBSA has a number of associated organisations, including World Snooker, World Billiards, World Women's Snooker and World Disability Billiards and Snooker.
Jason Ferguson became the WPBSA chairman in 2010, having previously held the role from 2001 to 2003. Rex Williams was chairman for 13 years until 1987, when he was replaced by John Virgo. Previous presidents include Jeffrey Archer once served as president.

History

A Professional Billiard Players Association was formed on 26 July 1946, with Joe Davis as chairman. The professional game was in decline in the 1950s and 1960s and the PBPA was also dormant until being restarted in April 1968 with eight professional members. Mike Green was designated as the Secretary. Membership of the Association was by application, with playing achievements and disciplinary records the main factors taken into account. This means of becoming professional was later replaced by a series of "pro ticket" events. Prior to the formation of the WPBSA, the world governing body of both snooker and English billiards was the Billiards Association and Control Council, later known as the Billiards and Snooker Control Council.
The BACC announced in August 1968 that the world professional snooker championship would be run on a knockout basis, rather than the challenge system that had been in place from 1964 and in September 1969 that "The BA &CC and Professional Billiard Players Association have reached agreement regarding procedure for turning professional and other events governed by the BA CC."
The PBPA disaffiliated from the BA&CC from 1 October 1970 and was renamed the WPBSA on 12 December 1970, soon taking control of the running of the professional game.
The WPBSA was reorganised as a limited company on 13 January 1982 with the intention that it would negotiate contracts with television companies and sponsors, something that had previously been in the control of promoters like Mike Watterson, as well as organising the tournaments. In 1985, Green retired as Secretary and was succeeded by Martin Blake, at which point the Association moved its headquarters from Birmingham to Bristol.

Promotional activities

A subsidiary promotions company, WPBSA Promotions Ltd, was founded in 1983. World Snooker has been successful in promoting the sport in China, a major growth area for the sport and in other territories including Germany.
The 2008 Bahrain Championship was the first ranking tournament to be staged in the Middle East, which cost the organisation around £500,000 in prize money and organisational costs. One session at the event did not attract any audience, and the largest attendance for any of the sessions was 150. In 2019, World Snooker announced that there would be a ranking event in Saudi Arabia in 2020, the first in a ten-year series. Amnesty International criticised the announcement, due to its concerns about the human rights in the country.
The WPBSA supports coaching in cue sports through an accredited programme, and 2013 it initiated the "Cue Zone into Schools" programme, which took scaled-down tables into schools and was intended to interest school children in taking up the game. In 2019, the WPBSA announced the creation of an All-party parliamentary group for Snooker, chaired by Conor Burns.
In 2015, the Association submitted an unsuccessful bid for snooker to be played at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Another bid has been put forward for Paris 2024 through a branch of the association formed in 2017, the World Snooker Federation.

Criticism and controversy

In 2001, in a legal case brought by Stephen Hendry, Mark Williams and their management company, the WPBSA was found to have taken advantage of its dominant position in the snooker market by forcing its members to seek permission to play in tournaments, which could allow the WPBSA to prevent rival organisations from competing with it. Former WPBSA chairman Geoff Foulds lost a libel case that he had brought against The Daily Mirror when it accused him of submitting falsified expense claims to the WPBSA.
The body has received criticism in the late 2000s. John Higgins has been particularly vocal in his opinion that World Snooker has not done enough to promote the game in new territories, particularly in Eastern Europe. The rival World Series of Snooker was launched by a consortium including Higgins in 2008.
When World Snooker scheduled the 2008 Bahrain Championship on dates which clashed with Premier League Snooker matches scheduled five months earlier with World Snooker approval, this caused four leading players to miss the Bahrain event and consequently lose ranking points—Higgins called the clash "laughable". Premier League organiser Barry Hearn commented that "I am very disappointed and I can't understand why World Snooker hasn't discussed dates with us", while Higgins and his manager Pat Mooney threatened legal action over the ranking points situation. In response, World Snooker referred to the Premier League being a "third-party promoter", noted that they run events on 11 out of 13 weeks between September and November, and declared that "our members have the freedom of choice to pick which tournaments to participate in". The idea of scheduling the event in free time in January or March, or arranging it in advance of Premier League scheduling, was not mentioned.
In 2008, the Association's benevolent fund was investigated for accounting irregularities and the apparent involvement in the decision-making process of WPBSA officials. The decision to decline an application for a grant from Chris Small, a former player who retired due to Ankylosing spondylitis, was also criticised by several of the game's leading figures.