Article:If I was in charge of World Snooker

I'd run 5 types of Tour

1 - Regional Tours : - These are events which are played at Snooker Halls, such as Paul Hunter English Open. They are for the lowest amount of Ranking points and any points scored are counted for the Regional Tour and all Tours above it in the structure as described below. The Ranking points awarded are worth half of the value of the corresponding ranking points on the National Tour.

2 - National Tours: - This is what is now called PIOS - the players pay to enter this Tour, as they do on the Pontin's International Open Series. The players can also play Regional Tour events and score Regional Tour Ranking Points, which will also count for this Tour. The Ranking points awarded are worth half of the value of the corresponding ranking points on the Continental Tour. The top 8 players will qualify for the Continental Tour.

3 - Continental Tours : - These Continental Tours are played by the World's Top Players. Each player who plays in the Continental Tour will have the opportunity to qualify for the following season's World Tour. Ranking points awarded are worth half of the value of the corresponding ranking points on the World Tour. The events on the Continental Tour are classified as Opens (Welsh Open etc) in order to distinguish them from the Championships that are played for the on World Tour. The top players from each Continental Tour will be allowed to play on the following season's World Tour.

4 - World Tour: - This is made up of the best players from each of the Continental Tours. These players will also have a Continental Tour that they play on each season in order to qualify for the following Season's World Tour. This Tour has all the topline events - GP Championship, UK Championship, Masters, World Championship etc. All events are called Championships.

5 - Champion' Tour : - Throughout the Tours above, all players who win Tournaments will get the opportunity to play on the Champions' Tour (there would have to be a qualifying tournament to determine the players). This Tour is a Tour of 10 to 12 players who play each other in a league format similar to Matchroom Sport's Premier League. This Tour does not have any knock out stages and is simply each player playing the other and scoring ranking points for winning. The player with the most Ranking points is the winner of the Champions' Tour and in turn wins a place on the following season's Champions' Tour.

Ranking Points -

In all of the above Tours players will have the main Tour that they play in. For some this will be the World Tour (those players will also play in a Continental Tour full time) for others their main tour will be the Continental Tour (they can play on National or Regional as well). All players can play in all of the events on their own tour and they can also play in those on lower tours. Any points scored on lower tours are awarded for those tours and also for any other tours which are of higher importance. (ie Continental Tour is higher importance than National Tour, World Tour higher importance that both National Tour and Continental Tour). So points scored on the Regional Tour will score for all the Tours that a player is eligible for.

NB - The Champions' Tour is excluded from this. The Champions' Tour points are scored on the Champions' Tour and also the Highest Tour that the player plays on (most probably the World Tour). They do not count for any other tour (so a World Tour player would not be able to count them for this Continental Tour)

Bonus Ranking Points - Bonus points would be paid to the players for each 100 Break, each maximum break and each Frame won. The points for each tour would be distributed as above (Continental points are 1/2 of World Tour, National Tour 1/2 of Continental, Regional Tour bonus points 1/2 of National Tour.

Prize money -

The World Tour would pay the players prize money based on where they finish the Tournament as is traditional.

The Continental Tour would pay players prize money based on where they finish the Tour (so there would be fixed amounts for each position). This is a fair distribution of funds in a climate where there is little money and the top players will have the opportunity to earn more money through the World Tour and the Champions' Tour.

The National Tour will have to pay the players prize money based on where they finish each Tournament as is traditional because of the way that it is funded (by the players themselves)

The Regional Tour events will have to pay the players prize money based on where they finish the Tournament as is traditional.

Bonus Prize money -

With the difficulties that the sport has in bringing in sponsor's money for Title Sponsorship, I would allow companies to sponsor Snooker at lower levels, so that Snooker works with more sponsors. Prizes such as High Break and Maximum break, which are currently paid from the main fund would be sponsored, which will allow more money to remain in the main fund to be paid out to the player based on his finishing position.

These are also the awards that a sponsor would want to be attached to as Maximum breaks and High Breaks are talked about and repeated on television and the internet, so there would be plenty of exposure for very little financial risk.