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EXCLUSIVE SS Article 1 - Barry Hearn’s rescue offer
It is not Snooker Scene’s practice to divulge our contents in advance but the upcoming WPBSA AGM on December 2 is so important for the game’s future that we make an exception. We are grateful to The Snooker Forum’s help in this regard.
Pages 3-7 of our December issue report that Barry Hearn is ready to make himself available as WPBSA chairman if the present chairman, Sir Rodney Walker, fails to be re-elected on December 2.
Snooker Scene believes that it is vital that Walker, along with two other directors presenting themselves to the AGM, Jim McMahon and Mike Dunn, do not achieve re-election.
We are therefore releasing five pages of Snooker Scene December in the hope that they will contribute to the debate and possibly even sway some votes in the 72 man electorate to make it possible for Hearn to be given the chance to give snooker the new start is desperately needs.
Clive Everton, editor, Snooker Scene
Barry Hearn’s rescue offer
We refer to the World Profession Billiards and Snooker Association’s annual general meeting at which three of its five board members, Sir Rodney Walker, its chairman, Jim McMahon and Mike Dunn, present themselves for re-election on a straight yes or no vote of the electorate of 72.
If the noes prevail, it will leave a board of only two, Lee Doyle of 110sport and Hamish McInnes, unknown to most players, who was introduced by Walker after Sport England deemed him surplus to requirements in its middle management.
Pressure on Walker, already apparent in recent months, intensified with a declaration that Barry Hearn would be prepared to replace him.
Walker offered himself for re-election at the AGM a year earlier that he need have done in a move tantamount to requesting a vote of confidence so that he could remain in position for a further two years.
Since nominations for election to the board closed on June 30, Hearn could not have offered to stand at this stage.
“I would, of course, only consider this with the backing of the players,” said Hearn. “If the players decide they are happy with the way things are at present and they re-elect Sir Rodney I would of course respect that decision and continue to do all I can to create playing opportunities through existing channels.”
Hearn’s Matchroom organisation promotes the Premier League, which is shown on Sky, and the Championship League, an event delivered exclusively to subscribing betting websites.
Although he has remained Steve Davis’s friend, manager and business partner, Hearn is not as central a figure in snooker as he used to be and until now has resisted approaches to make a return to the sport.
Under his chairmanship of the Professional Darts Council, darts has been immensely successful. He is chairman of Leyton Orient and is deeply involved in the promotion and televising of several sports.
His special talent has always lain in identifying and exploiting niche markets, famously darts but including pool and tenpin bowling, angling even.
“I am not currently looking for, neither do I need to take this step. However, I do believe that there has never been a better time for expansion of the game and it would be a challenge I would relish,” he said.
Hearn has the backing of the Snooker Players Association, a new union that WPBSA refuses to recognise.
Its spokesman, Pat Mooney, manager of John Higgins, the world champion, said: “The SPA has over the past months used all routes available to present the wishes of the membership with little success. We believe there must therefore be either a change of thinking or a change of personnel within the [WPBSA] board to ensure the development of the game is in the proper hands.”
Mooney added that, if Hearn becomes chairman, his first priority would be to conduct a root and branch review of “the whole structure and potential of the game on a global basis.”
In the event of Walker, McMahon and Dunn failing to be re-elected, the rump of the board could in theory flout the wishes of the membership by not taking up Hearn’s offer to become chairman and appoint a board of his choosing, a privilege extended to Walker when he came into snooker.
However, in this eventuality, an EGM could be called at which the majority who voted to oust the incumbent trio would no doubt be prepared to oust Doyle and McInnes as well.
All this constitutes a unique opportunity fir professional snooker – in all probability its last chance for a generation – to halt a decline, extensively documented by Snooker Scene not just in this issue but over many months and even years.
But, to return to basics, the prospect of much needed change may, even as you read this, have proved a cruel mirage if players vote in sufficient numbers to support a regime with a record of proven failure and nothing to offer but yet another promise of jam tomorrow.
This regime might have felt that it could count on 13 votes from players attached to the 110 camp and a couple from those whose managements have paid positions at the WPBSA’s academy in Sheffield (the accounts for which have never been published to the membership).
Gatherers of proxy votes like Dunn himself and the amazingly tall coach, Del Hill were expected to have been just as assiduous in this election on behalf of the establishment as they have successfully been in the past.
Hopefully, our January issue will be able to report the exit of the old guard and the arrival at the helm of a man with a relevant record of success not just in negotiating deals but, notably in the case of darts, creating structures that benefit all levels of the game.
Hearn has not been shy of declaring how much money he has made from darts but as the players have been enriched and fairly treated too, no one seems to have begrudged him this.
This most astute of commercial operators realises that sport is not just about money. It is about creating opportunities, keeping players busy with events and imposing his cheerful, inclusive attitude in such a way that everyone has a good time.
Contrasting this prospect with the buttoned up, secretive, instinctively excluding attitude of WPBSA as we know it, the December 2 election ought to have produced a landside of proxies against Walker and his colleagues but the good sense of players in the mass, as the Altium debacle of 2002 demonstrated, can never be taken for granted.
Pages 3-7 of our December issue report that Barry Hearn is ready to make himself available as WPBSA chairman if the present chairman, Sir Rodney Walker, fails to be re-elected on December 2.
Snooker Scene believes that it is vital that Walker, along with two other directors presenting themselves to the AGM, Jim McMahon and Mike Dunn, do not achieve re-election.
We are therefore releasing five pages of Snooker Scene December in the hope that they will contribute to the debate and possibly even sway some votes in the 72 man electorate to make it possible for Hearn to be given the chance to give snooker the new start is desperately needs.
Clive Everton, editor, Snooker Scene
Barry Hearn’s rescue offer
We refer to the World Profession Billiards and Snooker Association’s annual general meeting at which three of its five board members, Sir Rodney Walker, its chairman, Jim McMahon and Mike Dunn, present themselves for re-election on a straight yes or no vote of the electorate of 72.
If the noes prevail, it will leave a board of only two, Lee Doyle of 110sport and Hamish McInnes, unknown to most players, who was introduced by Walker after Sport England deemed him surplus to requirements in its middle management.
Pressure on Walker, already apparent in recent months, intensified with a declaration that Barry Hearn would be prepared to replace him.
Walker offered himself for re-election at the AGM a year earlier that he need have done in a move tantamount to requesting a vote of confidence so that he could remain in position for a further two years.
Since nominations for election to the board closed on June 30, Hearn could not have offered to stand at this stage.
“I would, of course, only consider this with the backing of the players,” said Hearn. “If the players decide they are happy with the way things are at present and they re-elect Sir Rodney I would of course respect that decision and continue to do all I can to create playing opportunities through existing channels.”
Hearn’s Matchroom organisation promotes the Premier League, which is shown on Sky, and the Championship League, an event delivered exclusively to subscribing betting websites.
Although he has remained Steve Davis’s friend, manager and business partner, Hearn is not as central a figure in snooker as he used to be and until now has resisted approaches to make a return to the sport.
Under his chairmanship of the Professional Darts Council, darts has been immensely successful. He is chairman of Leyton Orient and is deeply involved in the promotion and televising of several sports.
His special talent has always lain in identifying and exploiting niche markets, famously darts but including pool and tenpin bowling, angling even.
“I am not currently looking for, neither do I need to take this step. However, I do believe that there has never been a better time for expansion of the game and it would be a challenge I would relish,” he said.
Hearn has the backing of the Snooker Players Association, a new union that WPBSA refuses to recognise.
Its spokesman, Pat Mooney, manager of John Higgins, the world champion, said: “The SPA has over the past months used all routes available to present the wishes of the membership with little success. We believe there must therefore be either a change of thinking or a change of personnel within the [WPBSA] board to ensure the development of the game is in the proper hands.”
Mooney added that, if Hearn becomes chairman, his first priority would be to conduct a root and branch review of “the whole structure and potential of the game on a global basis.”
In the event of Walker, McMahon and Dunn failing to be re-elected, the rump of the board could in theory flout the wishes of the membership by not taking up Hearn’s offer to become chairman and appoint a board of his choosing, a privilege extended to Walker when he came into snooker.
However, in this eventuality, an EGM could be called at which the majority who voted to oust the incumbent trio would no doubt be prepared to oust Doyle and McInnes as well.
All this constitutes a unique opportunity fir professional snooker – in all probability its last chance for a generation – to halt a decline, extensively documented by Snooker Scene not just in this issue but over many months and even years.
But, to return to basics, the prospect of much needed change may, even as you read this, have proved a cruel mirage if players vote in sufficient numbers to support a regime with a record of proven failure and nothing to offer but yet another promise of jam tomorrow.
This regime might have felt that it could count on 13 votes from players attached to the 110 camp and a couple from those whose managements have paid positions at the WPBSA’s academy in Sheffield (the accounts for which have never been published to the membership).
Gatherers of proxy votes like Dunn himself and the amazingly tall coach, Del Hill were expected to have been just as assiduous in this election on behalf of the establishment as they have successfully been in the past.
Hopefully, our January issue will be able to report the exit of the old guard and the arrival at the helm of a man with a relevant record of success not just in negotiating deals but, notably in the case of darts, creating structures that benefit all levels of the game.
Hearn has not been shy of declaring how much money he has made from darts but as the players have been enriched and fairly treated too, no one seems to have begrudged him this.
This most astute of commercial operators realises that sport is not just about money. It is about creating opportunities, keeping players busy with events and imposing his cheerful, inclusive attitude in such a way that everyone has a good time.
Contrasting this prospect with the buttoned up, secretive, instinctively excluding attitude of WPBSA as we know it, the December 2 election ought to have produced a landside of proxies against Walker and his colleagues but the good sense of players in the mass, as the Altium debacle of 2002 demonstrated, can never be taken for granted.
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