Well, well, well. Considering how little sport we have seen, snooker has really flexed its muscles during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Barren Wasteland Of Sport
Coronavirus has caused and is causing devastating effects around the world. To minimise the effects of COVID-19, people started working from home, many stayed indoors and, in relation to sport, nearly all events and leagues are either postponed, cancelled or ended early.
Snooker isn’t any different. At one point, snooker players at the Gibraltar Open were playing in front of an empty crowd. The Tour Championship has been rescheduled to 21-26 July. This year’s World Championship has been rescheduled to the 31st July 2020, with a crowd or not. The World Championship qualifiers could be played around the 18th July, according to chairman Jason Ferguson, though this has yet to be confirmed.
A couple of weeks ago, there was talk about a 64-man Championship League event and I was more concerned than uplifted. I did think that it was good to see sport back but my immediate thoughts were that it feels far too soon under the obvious circumstances and high risk.
But one must give Barry Hearn and the Matchroom Sport team so much credit for pulling an event together under such difficult times.
The Event Details
The event starting on 1st June is called the Championship League. Of course, another event so the same name was won by Scott Donaldson earlier this year. So this is another event! We can watch it live on ITV4 until 11th June. The direct details are below.
So, 64 players are expected to play in this tournament. They are split into sixteen groups of four, with the winner proceeding to the next round. They are divided into four-man groups again and the victors of those groups will battle it out in the final group. If you have been following the darts tournament PDC Home Tour, it’s a very similar format.
But how will all the players, referees and commentators be kept safe? According to Matchroom Sport, all players must be tested negative to enter the venue. The accommodation is on site, which means they will be isolated within the venue. On their website, other safety measures will include:
- Social distancing measures in place throughout the venue.
- Players seated at least two metres apart during matches.
- Players using anti-bacterial hand sanitiser before matches and avoiding handshakes.
- Referees endeavouring to keep two metres away from players where possible.
- There will be no access for playersโ guests.
- First aid personnel on site at all times
It will be difficult to know who the favourites are here. They are likely to be players who have access to a table or who the most successful are in Championship League history. Judd Trump was victorious in three of these events, making him the obvious favourite. Joe Perry and Stuart Bingham have won this event once.
My Opinion and Thoughts
What is quite nice is no-one is forcing players to participate. Despite this, Judd Trump, Neil Robertson, Mark Allen, Kyren Wilson and surprisingly, Ronnie O’Sullivan are among those playing at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes. It’s great and morale-boosting for us snooker folk to watch many top quality players play the sport we love again. It is also good that many players are very positive about the organisation too.
This event provides a money-earning opportunity for players, who haven’t been able to earn money over the past few months playing snooker. The winner’s prize of ยฃ20,000 will be much appreciated. It will offer much-needed match practice in the run up to the Tour Championship and the World qualifiers. Let’s not forget, many professional careers are at stake as some are threatened with relegation from the tour.
The most important thing is that there are precautions to keep everyone healthy. Since snooker is leading the way of reintroducing sport back into normal life, the organisers must be stringent with their checks. If successful, maybe other sports will follow suit and learn from us.
The obvious flaw that couldn’t be helped is that it doesn’t support international snooker players. It isn’t surprising that this event is so English-centric. Not sure if there are plans to do something over there but it is impossible to accommodate everyone. Even though its a low-key BO4 event, it’s going to be good to see everyone again!
The draw is found by clicking here.
Yes it’s very welome and a surprise when it was announced! For me, it’s not really the ‘Championship League’ – which finished on 3rd March and was won by Scott Donaldson. It’s a one-off ‘Covid Classic’, and will be remembered because of that rather than wonderful snooker, which would be asking too much of the players in these difficult conditions.
Actually the ‘Championship League’ has always tended to have a British focus (it used to be a notorious drinking outing). The foreign players, particularly the Chinese, have been unable to get VISAs to return to the UK – which may impact their chances of playing in the World Championship. Luca Brecel is unsure how to get across, but will at least beat the impending quarantine regulations. Jason Ferguson made a statement yesterday about possible assistance for returning players, but either way they face horrible obstacles.
The issue of ‘safety’ depends very much on what you consider ‘safe’ to mean. In general, the procedures they’ve outlined are very safe, and may set an important trend for work and sport to be able to resume.
yup will be great to have some snooker to watch again. no idea what the standard is gonna like but probably quite high and an attacking style especially in the later group stages – no pressure with quick roll on 4-frame matches
the safety seems as good as you can possibly expect at this stage and things are opening up so this is a good experiment at this time and quite right that its invitational based on rankings but no ranking points
if this can help in the run up to the worlds in terms of practice and practicalities then great. just hope no-one tests positive as there is still a minimal risk