A golden ball and a 167 break: Saudi Arabia’s mad snooker gimmick is a step too far
The announcement at the end of January that Saudi Arabia would be entering the snooker fray as the latest phase of its sportswashing project didn’t come as any great surprise and the fact that the sport is welcoming Saudi investment with open arms is even less shocking.
With its fingers in an almost exponentially increasing number of sporting pies – from F1 races to tennis tournaments, boxing super-cards to lucrative horse races, purchases of Premier League clubs and revolutionary golf tours, and with global tournaments such as football World Cups and Asian Games on the horizon – the country shows no sign of slowing down in its concerted attempt to distract from alleged human rights abuses.
Snooker (fairly small) piece of the jigsaw; a full ranking event in the for a tournament featuring all 128 professional players to take place next season. For a niche sport fighting for both coverage in a congested media landscape and desperately needed investment from external partners, a Saudi link-up is almost inevitable – moral quandaries be damned.
