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Higgins re-think on World Final from SnookerBacker

Postby N_Castle07

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The mystery of why we heard very little from the reigning Betfred.com World Champion yesterday has been revealed.

He was confined to the ‘naughty corner’ while the others chatted away. Loyal readers may remember him saying last month that he wouldn’t mind the World Final being played over one day instead of two. A daft idea, which even made Stephen Hendry speak out against his fellow Scotsman.

The world snooker boss Barry Hearn has indicated he is not prepared to tamper with the format of the Crucible showpiece, around which he intends to build up the flagging professional snooker circuit, and Higgins has found little support for his silly remarks.

It appears that the period of confinement and reflection in the naughty zone has helped John see the error of his ways and he appears to have done a swift U-Turn. He is now happy to fall into line and told the Press Association ‘It was just something I threw out there’. Oh I see, so you never really meant it all along?

‘I was looking at the point of attention spans and people’s attention spans are perhaps not what they were 10 or 15 years ago when they would sit down for two days and watch a final…………he then sat daydreaming and staring into space for twenty minutes before continuing…….’but a lot of people have told me they don’t like the idea and they want to keep it the way it is, two days…………..he then spotted a television screen in the background with the Jeremy Kyle Show on and watched that for a bit while the journalists waited patiently for him to concentrate again. Several minutes later when Kyle went for a commercial break John ended his short on words long on time press conference by saying ‘that’s fine to keep it like that. I was only saying that was something we could look at in the future’ at which point the rather deflated press pack dispersed and left John daydreaming away.


John gets easily distracted these days
Higgins who is 34 but has the attention span of a 7 year old apparently, has echoed Ronnie O’Sullivan and urged snooker’s rank and file players to back Hearn in his plans to transform snooker’s dwindling fortunes.

Both Higgins and O’Sullivan believe snooker has an opportunity to move towards a brighter future, and Barry’s track record, notably in darts, indicates he knows how to engineer a turnaround in fortunes for a once fashionable sport which has lost a chunk of its audience.

O’Sullivan urged the other players to “see sense”, amid suggestions some are wavering over which way to go when Hearn’s plans are put to a vote next month. If they are rejected, Hearn intends to take his ball home, throw his toys out of the pram and leave the WPBSA, however if they are approved he will take charge of the commercial arm of snooker, and a controlling interest.

O’Sullivan said: “In my opinion it has to happen. Whether it does or not we’ll have to see but I’m sure the players will see sense. If they don’t I’m sure Barry won’t be hanging around and we’re back to square one and it’s over.

“We’re lucky to have these people involved so whatever they want to do I think you have to back them with a little blind faith.”


Baz is talking big bucks
After finishing watching Jeremy Kyle Higgins returned to say ‘this is a big decision we’ve all got to make: do we go ahead with Barry’s proposals or do we go along steadily sliding into mediocrity. I’m sure the players will wake up and grasp the new things with both hands and we can move on from there’

Hearn’s plan contains proposals for more overseas events, a one-frame knock-out event featuring the top 64 players – and at some point in the future he believes a world champion could be rewarded with a million-dollar pay day.

This year’s Crucible winner will pick up £250,000, while one million US dollars is currently worth just over £650,000.