It`s official! Snooker World Cup returns

16:27:00 Ramona Dragomir 0 Comments

Barry Hearn along with Thailand`s official and dignitaries
Last year I read an article about Dennis Taylor, the 1985 world champion saying how much he misses the World Cup tournament. A tournament that saw snooker being played by teams of players rather that by individuals. Every part of the UK had its own team (England, Scotland, Wales, Nord Ireland), in the end the big shiny trophy being lifted not by one single player but by a team of players.


The competition was established back in 1975 and it had its last edition in 2001, but don’t get me wrong, for not each year knew a new World Cup tournament (ex. between 1990 and 1996 there was no World Cup, as well as from 1996 until 1999). But things had to be chanced since more than one player thought that reviving this old tournament was going to be a good idea. So as usual, Barry Hearn put his mind to work, travelled the continent, landed in Thailand and set with the "snooker lovers" there a brand new World Cup.


This year from July 11 to 17, Thailand (a country that absolutely loves snooker and has a tremendous history with this sport) will hold the Snooker World Cup at the World Trade Centre from its capital, Bangkok.
Some important sponsors were welcomed a board, PTT, Thailand's state-owned energy company, and EGAT, the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, in order to make things as official as they can be and start developing the programme and put together the latest details.


Thailand - a paradise for snooker
According to World Snooker web-site: "Eight teams are seeded into the event based on the position of players in the world rankings, and as the host nation, Thailand will have two teams." So, if Thailand has two, this means that we shall have England, Scotland, Wales and Nord Ireland to complete the list. However, the names of the players involved haven’t been released yet, so I don’t want to get ahead of myself right here with predictions and stuff like that. Better to wait a bit and see the correct draw, don’t you think? :-)


What I know for sure is that Barry Hear is indeed making snooker go global. With the Brazilian Maters that will start in September, with the German Masters that was a total success, with some new ranking events going to be unveiled really soon (according to Dave Hendon the new place to be is Australia), snooker is getting its well-deserved share of fame!
It’s absolutely incredible that no more than two years ago the programme that the snooker players had to deal with was a genuine vacation and now they are travelling high and low the planet to participate in as many snooker events as possible. 
I’m truly happy that snooker is being known by more and more nations and hopefully one day...the media will cover snooker as mush as they do with other sports...because you see? Snooker is back! ;-)

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