Ronnie O’Sullivan snubbed a meeting with World Snooker Tour bosses during the UK Snooker Championship in York. The meeting was held as snooker chiefs attempted to smooth things over with players following recent tensions, but Mark Allen was the only star of the Tour to turn up. And Allen has pointed the finger at O’Sullivan and his other rivals for their lack of interest in the meeting.
“There’s not enough other players willing to have those type of meetings – that’s very, very frustrating”, Allen said. “There’s so many players behind the scenes saying what they don’t like in the game, what they would love to see changed.
“There was only me that actually wanted to have a meeting. It was a four-and-a-half hour meeting, so we had lots of time to get through everything and I appreciate everyone’s time from WST who came because there was like seven of them there.
“It was a very open and candid chat and I went away from it, overall, positive with how it went. [I was] disappointed with some of the responses I got, but it gave me more of an understanding why they view things a certain way and why they have to have certain things in the contract.”
O’Sullivan got his hands on a record-extending eighth UK Snooker Championship title on Sunday as he defeated Ding Junhui 10-7 in the final. And the 48-year-old is set to join a whole host of other star players competing at an exhibition event in Macau on Christmas day.
Five snooker aces were previously warned that if they committed to an exhibition in Macau in October they would be in breach of their contracts as the event clashed with the Northern Ireland Open. But O’Sullivan, who claims the World Snooker Tour sent him “a letter the other week saying they want me to consider my future on the tour”, has admitted he is looking forward to his endeavours in China over the festive period.
“It’s a stellar line-up”, he explained. “I get paid so much more for going to do that. It’s really hard for me to turn them down, I can’t. I’ve got to think of my family and all that sort of stuff.
“It’s alright if you win all of these tournaments, great. But if you get beat first round you’re struggling to pay your bills and stuff. It’s hard. I’m trying to find the balance between competing and playing and trying to take the good offers that are out there for me to do my own sort of thing.”
