There was a whole situation recently regarding amateur players and their abilities to compete in professional snooker tournaments which sparked a few areas of discussion among players and fans alike, and whether things needed to be changed. Following Shaun Murphy’s early exit of the UK Championship, he expressed his frustration in a calm, civilised manner about amateur players and their place on the tour.

The professional circuit consists of 128 players, each with their own tour card. A tour card is required for a player to compete in tournaments and is earned by remaining within the Top 64 or qualifying via Q-School/Challenge Tour. An unranked player is what would be classed as an amateur and technically, they would not be allowed to participate in professional main tour events. However, it’s unlikely that all 128 ranked players will compete in every tournament so it’s necessary that the field be topped up to complete the tournament brackets.

Murphy’s case was that amateur players possess a ‘nothing to lose’ mentality in comparison to the professionals that are competing for their livelihoods. He noted that snooker is an individual sport where players aren’t contracted to a team, so they’re under different pressures than those outside of the main tour. Judd Trump didn’t necessarily agree pointing out that everyone competing on the table is going for the same thing and getting chances at matches like this may be the only real shot at earning some money for those at that level.

Having said that, there were many that agreed with Murphy following his statement. Mark Selby raised the question about the relevance of Q-School and those that qualified to become professionals using the traditional approach. His point, which was also backed by Stephen Hendry, looked at the matter of Q-School even being necessary if players that didn’t qualify still had a chance to compete in professional tournaments.

WST are always going to have the commercial perspective and look at ways to make snooker globally developed and increasingly entertaining. The inclusion of amateur players in competitions which can lead to moments such as this, where headlines are made and snooker is talked about on television/radio, is something that those on the top floor will certainly favour towards.

There is always the argument of professionals being able to walk over amateurs whenever they play them however, it will always come down to whoever plays better on the day. And the player that performs better on the day will come out on top, regardless of their ranking status. Which also happens to be the nature of sport. These things happen. They’ve happened in the past and will likely happen at some point in the future.

What was your stance on the amateur vs. professional discussion? Do you agree that certain things need to be changed? Or are things fine as the way they are?

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