Snooker disaster! Chinese players will not be able to raise their heads in a few years, and the development of Chinese billiards will fall into recession
The World Snooker Association announced the final verdict of the "gambling case" of Chinese players, and ten players were severely fined, including Liang Wenbo and Li Xing who were banned for life, which also set a new record for the harshest punishment in snooker history. Ten Chinese snooker athletes, including Liang Wenbo, will undoubtedly suffer heavy losses as a result, but they are paying for their mistakes and do not deserve much sympathy. The real disaster is that the development of billiards in China will stagnate and even fall into decline for a long time.
China is the largest market for snooker outside the UK, with a large number of world-class players such as Ding Junhui, Liang Wenbo, Yan Bingtao, etc., countless generous corporate and brand sponsorships, hundreds of millions of billiards fans and enthusiasts, and CCTV5, which is spit on by football and basketball fans because it often occupies hours to broadcast snooker matches... Looking at the billiard halls scattered all over the continent, what other indoor sport can compare in popularity?
As a skill competition that does not require strong physical confrontation, billiards is very suitable for Chinese athletes, so it is only a matter of time before the next Ding Junhui is born, because we have a demographic dividend, a public base, and the support and sponsorship of major mainstream media led by the central government and many first-line brands. Just as everyone is expecting snooker to be dominated by Chinese players, just like table tennis and badminton, devastating bad news has come...
Obviously, the boom of snooker and even the whole game of billiards will gradually cool down in China, no merchant is willing to invest real money in a problematic project, CCTV and other top media coverage of snooker will also decrease, parents may not particularly encourage children to develop in the direction of billiards.
The scandal may set back the development of billiards in China by ten years! Just like in the early 90s of last century, a large number of Chinese swimmers were found to have used doping collectively, the international impact was extremely bad, alarming the senior leaders, although we made unremitting efforts to correct ourselves, but China's swimming competition level has stagnated for at least ten years! Until now, the Chinese swimming team has still been maliciously smeared by European and American media wearing colored glasses, on the grounds that there are "previous convictions".
It is conceivable that Chinese snooker players will not have a good time playing in the UK for the next few years. Ding Junhui, the banner of Chinese snooker, may suffer less because he has already proven his strength and his honest and honest image is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. But most domestic players will be questioned, discriminated against, and will not be able to raise their heads at all. Because our gambling, match-fixing, and manipulation of the game this time are not alone, but collective and systematic.