Ronnie O’Sullivan backed by Neil Robertson over explosive snooker rant

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Snooker star Neil Robertson has backed Ronnie O’Sullivan after he claimed the sport is in “the worst place it has ever been” in a scathing rant.

O’Sullivan even suggested players should go on strike, saying: “Nothing will change until the majority of the players go, you know what, we are not playing.” One of a litany of criticisms O’Sullivan had was about some of the venues tournaments are staged in, with the Rocket stating: “It’s a bit like a pub sport now.

“Look at some of the tournaments. The Shootout. Some of the venues we play at. It’s lost its charm of what it used to be. It’s cheap.

“If they can be honest enough with themselves, maybe the people that run the game need to say: ‘We have taken it as far as we can’. If they really have the love of the sport they would hand it over to somebody else that had higher ambitions.”

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And world No4 Robertson agrees wholeheartedly with O’Sullivan’s point about venues, admitting some of them feel “soulless”. The Australian said: “It can seem quite harsh what Ronnie is saying but there is a lot of frustrations with many of the players there.”

“I think World Snooker are doing a good job but like everyone, they can do a better job. You know, what he said that the game has lost a lot of its kind of glamour and I think he is referring to the venues that we are playing at. Because apart from the UK Championship and the Masters, okay the German Masters at the Tempodrom is amazing…but all of the other venues feel like in some ways soulless.

“Really, really poor crowds because we keep chopping and changing all of the time. That must probably be a cost thing involved where we are trying to play the events at the cheapest possible venues. You don’t really get the best snooker when you do that when the players don’t enjoy it.

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“I think the standard of snooker has been the worst I have seen as a pro from everyone, from all of the top players. It has been awful. I don’t think the players have enjoyed playing. The scheduling has been really poor as well. The UK Championships were played [in November] and then we played four other events leading up to Christmas.

“The UK is usually the second from last one before Christmas. There seems to be a lot of chopping and changing to the calendar, which definitely needs improving. So I think Ronnie had a lot of good points, they were quite strong points, and World Snooker will take them on board for sure and try to do better.”

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