The 2022 Snooker Players Championship has reached the final, but an incident outside the arena has intensified, and the top superstar Ronnie O'Sullivan's unsuccessful refusal to participate in the appearance fee has been controversial.
Familiar fans should already know that the new Turkish Open this season has received a lot of attention, with a total prize money of up to half a million pounds attracting many players, but O'Sullivan has become the only player in the top 16 players to miss.
The reason for O'Sullivan's strike was also unexpected by fans, because O'Sullivan agreed to go to Turkey to compete, but had to ask the organizer to pay a five-figure pound appearance fee, but the organizer did not agree to this request, and finally O'Sullivan chose to refuse to participate.
As soon as the incident came out, it caused a lot of attention from the media and the outside world to once appear on the British sports hot search list, and the British media accused O'Sullivan of being too arrogant and willful to look at the event side at all, and the fans were also divided into two camps, some said that O'Sullivan as a top superstar needed to pay the appearance fee, of course, there are also fans who think that O'Sullivan's approach will bring a bad impact on the snooker arena.
Under the pressure of outside public opinion, the party O'Sullivan once again stood up and spoke up, in the mind of this unruly genius, if the event party could not meet his requirements, even if the competition was very important, he would not go to the competition to register, because he thought that the performance he brought was worth so much money.
O'Sullivan said: "The World Taiwan Federation has already made a lot of money over the years, this is a business, so why can't I fight for my due rights as a player, not to mention that my performance is definitely worth so much money, they are not willing to give me the right to choose not to participate.
I just have to play ten tournaments per season, which is a contract I signed with a sponsor. I'm not obligated to run to Turkey for free to play, and when I have time, I might as well go on vacation to Dubai and pick up some exhibition matches, and their appearance fees can fully reflect the value of my time.
Although O'Sullivan gave reasons for refusing to participate according to his actual situation, the bad impact of this incident on the snooker movement was huge, and Ferguson, the current president of the World Taiwan Federation, publicly said that O'Sullivan's approach was extremely disappointing.
Ferguson: We are very disappointed about Ronnie (O'Sullivan)'s refusal to play in the Turkish Open, his move should be criticized, what is the point of snooker if other players are like him. He didn't take the lead at all as a snooker superstar, living up to the expectations of the fans.
In fact, this is not the first time that O'Sullivan has asked the organizers of the event for the appearance fee, and this kind of thing has been countless before, but it did not occur to the organizers of Turkey who refused this request without mercy, which eventually led to this situation.
Since snooker is different from other sports, players have their own right to choose whether to participate or not, so O'Sullivan has no right to interfere with the World Taiwan Federation and the outside world, but it is certain that snooker fans in Turkey will be disappointed this time.
What do you think of O'Sullivan's repeated request for an appearance fee and a fruitless refusal to participate?