Snooker Crucible: Call for Government investment to help secure future of World Championship in Sheffield

The Government is being urged to back snooker with cash that could keep the world snooker championships in Sheffield.

Former chairman of World Snooker tour Barry Hearne has called on Sheffield Council to provide a bigger venue for the championships, but the local authority’s chief executive says it would have to work with World Snooker and National Government.

Now former world champion Shaun Murphy is calling for the Government to step in and help a sport which has not received public funding, while many others have. He wants the championships to stay at The Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, their home since the 1970s

Speaking in the interval on the BBC coverage of the final on Monday night, he said: “One of the big differences between this and other sports... we get absolutely zero funding from any Government at all. We need some investment. Help us.”

Earlier, Barry Hearne who said two years ago there would be no change of venue in his lifetime, said: “We've got to take into account the changing world we live in. There's no point in trying to bull***people into saying it's not about the money, because it is about the money to a large extent. and anyone who says different is not living in the real world. 

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"I'm a big fan of The Crucible, of the history. My life changed here in 1981. I obviously owe it big time. But we need to have a bigger venue. for the fans, for the players, than the one that we've got now. We've been saying this for many years and we're looking to Sheffield City Council to do it."

He said if he didn’t take the money, players would be annoyed with him as it could change their lives. He added: “Of course we don’t want to leave but everyone's got a price.”

Sheffield Council chief executive Kate Josephs told the BBC: "Just expecting local Government to find that is a hard thing to expect given the constraints we're under.

“We will want to work in partnership with World Snooker, we'll want to work in partnership with national Government and we'll want to work in partnership with all of those organisations that support the sport of snooker to make sure that we can come to the right solution for the sport to stay here in Sheffield.”

She said world snooker brought millions of pounds to the city but the benefits were way beyond that. She said it was part of a heritage that brought huge numbers of visitors to the city and put Sheffield on the world stage ‘where it belonged’

Steven Brownell, chief executive of WST, said there were three options of staying at the Crucible, trying to find an alternative venue in Sheffield, or to listen to offers from around the world Former world champion Steve Davis said he took home more prize money (£80,000) for winning the snooker in 1987 then Nick Faldo did for winning the open in golf the same year, but the golf tournament won more than £2 million more last year.

He said: "No one disputes that this is the Wembley, Lords and Wimbledon of snooker, but remember, they have all had a major rebuild to knock them into line with the needs of a modern day sport. This auditorium still has 980 seats. exactly the same number as when it opened in 1971.”

Former world champion John Parrott, in the BBC studio, said The Crucible was were he always wanted to play when he was growing up.

There has been talk of another snooker tour, involving the middle east. Current player Stuart Bingham said: "It's business at the end of the day. History doesn't pay bills." New world champion Kyren Wilson said he would weigh up all his options.

But former world champion Ken Doherty said you got a sense of the history at the Crucible that could not be replicated in China or Saudi.