SNOOKER faces a financial crisis after the sport's two biggest sponsors announced they are terminating their contracts.
888.com will no longer sponsor the World Championship despite being just three years into a five-year deal, and Saga Insurance have also invoked a termination clause in their contract to back the prestigious Wembley Masters.
It means the World Pro
fessional Billiards and Snooker Association, the game's governing body, have a total prize-money black hole of around £1.5 million to plug from their own resources if replacement sponsors cannot be found.
The WPBSA broke the news in a letter to its players.
The letter said: "Both companies have stated that the current economic climate is affecting marketing budgets in all industries and that market conditions had changed during the course of the agreements.
"We are currently out in the marketplace, proactively contacting potential sponsors through our sponsorship agency IMG. We remain optimistic that we will find new sponsors for the World Championship and the Masters."
The World Championship and Masters had been previously backed by tobacco companies since the 1970s until the government ban outlawed their continued sponsorship.
Royal London Watches and Maplin Electronics are currently in their final year of sponsorship for the Grand Prix and UK Championship respectively.
There are two fully funded and sponsored ranking events in China but the first major event of the new season, the Northern Ireland Trophy, gets under way later this month without a big money backer.
The full article contains 253 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
