Snooker star Stephen Maguire believes the sport’s ranking system should be overhauled to make it less focused on money.. The current system favours players who have pocketed the most prize money, with some tournaments – such as the ones held in Saudi Arabia – offering bigger financial rewards than many of the other competitions.
The world rankings are decided based on prize money players have won over a two-year rolling period. There is also a one-year ranking list, which determines entry to the World Grand Prix, Players Championship and Tour Championship. And Neil Robertson was catapulted to the top of the one-year list when he landed a whopping £500,000 at the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters in August after defeating Ronnie O’Sullivan in the showpiece match.
“My thing going forward would be the ranking system,” Maguire told Metro. “The money is great, but you cannae have somebody winning half a million pounds at the start of the season and have half a million ranking points.
“Have the half a million pounds. But it just messes everything up with the Grand Prix and everything. Why not have a points structure? It’s a big tournament, so get more points, but it doesn’t have to be half a million.”
Players who lost in the last 16 at the Saudi Arabia Masters in the summer were handed £30,000 for their endeavours. In comparison, this week’s Northern Ireland Open offers a prize of £100,000 to the winning player.
And Maguire added: “Win this this week [in Belfast], you’ve won the same amount of matches, but get £100,000 points. It’s not five times as difficult to win Saudi.
“The boys in the top 16 deserve to be where they are but it doesn’t mean they deserve to win one match and have a platform to get in the Grand Prix just for one match.
“The boys would agree. I was up there once and the top 16 will agree with that, they shouldn’t win one match and overtake everybody that’s winning qualifying matches and getting to last 16s. It’s not right. It’s just a little tweak. No bad words said. It’s not a big deal. It’s just a tweak to fix it.”
Maguire, who has been named on the players board of the new Professional Snooker Players Association, also took aim at snooker chiefs as he explained: “‘There’s a few things going on behind the scenes, but I think we should be listened to, the players.
“Listen, there’s no game if there’s no players and I think the guys at the top forget that sometimes. They need to be reminded, there’s no games without players – and they don’t listen to players.”