MOUNT RESPONDS TO SPA CRITICISM

Paul Mount, who owns and runs the South West Snooker Academy in Gloucester, host venue for this season’s UK PTCs, has issued a statement in response to a letter sent to the WPBSA by the Snooker Players Association.

This letter lists a number of complaints from players, including being charged to use practice tables and for refreshments.

Here is the SPA letter in full:

Regarding PTC events.
While at the PTC1 in Gloucester the SPA was bombarded with complaints from our members, No players lounge, having to pay for tea & coffee, and not being able to bring there own food into the premises, Some players do not live on pie and beans or toasties, some players have a special diet such as vegetarian or vegans, one thing that annoyed the players is that the refs and officials had there own tea facilities and also brought there own food in, such as fish and chips.

Practise tables, players are aware that other PTC events don't have practice tables, but when they are asked to pay £4 to practice, it shows that facilities are there to be had.

I had a meeting with Paul Mount and he explained that world snooker were penny pinching and with charging him £10,000 to hold the events at his venue, and with all his overheads and staff ect to pay for he has no choice but to charge players for tea and coffee, practice facilities ect.

Talking to Paul he has said that for the sake of £500 WPBSA could have recovered the two spare tables and practice could be free, The SPA feel this is a small price to pay to keep its members happy. £4 is a lot to pay for players who are on a very tight budget, while at a venue player like to practice at least twice a day.

Our members say that practise tables help break up a players day, one player told me that he had the most boring day of his snooker life.

Prize money.

Players are finding it hard to meet expenses, the feed back is that the prize money is not spread enough, you and I  have talked about this on many occasion, and the SPA feel that if any player wins a match he should receive some prize money.

Players are saying if you run a factory and you had 128 workers you don't say right I want you to work but only 64 of you will get paid.

Players are christening it as the minimum wage tour.

Jason Ferguson, the WPBSA chairman, replied to the effect that it was a matter for Mount how he runs his academy building.

Mount’s response to all this is as follows:

After a very arduous week, preparing and running PTC1,(average of 16 hour per day) for myself and each member of permanent and temporary SWSA staff I have been asked to respond publicly to several complaints about UKPTC1. 

In the interest of openness, I would like to explain my position and more importantly the position of the SWSA.

Before discussing details I would like to point out that the SWSA is a limited company, limited by Guarantee. This means that the Directors guarantee that all profits go to designated charities of our choice and not to shareholders.

Since the SWSA opened it has cost in excess of £120,000 per year to keep operating, all of which has been covered by myself and my profit making companies. I have never taken a wage from SWSA or any other of the snooker companies I own. Call this naivety or, as I prefer, a benevolent attempt to help develop snooker from grass root level and upwards. Either way it seems to be insufficient for some people.

It is my target to develop the SWSA so that it can operate profitably or at least break even. To do this it needs to be run as a business and operate within the boundaries of any contract it enters in to.

I, on behalf of the SWSA, entered into a contract with World Snooker Ltd to provide a venue for all four UK PTC’s.

I was and remain happy with the contract I negotiated directly with Barry Hearn and have not complained about its contents to WSL or any other persons. It enables us to provide a first class venue and facilities whilst at the same time the scope to carry on normal business activities to cover our costs for the five day period of the event.

I had an amicable meeting with Les Barton, Director of SPA, at UKPTC1 to discuss complaints the SPA wanted to make to me on behalf of their members. I did talk with Les, as a bone fide representative of the players, about some aspects of our contract with WSL but I will not go into detail in public as this is confidential information between WSL and SWSA. Suffice to say I did explain our overall costs  and why we charged for table time and coffee to help pay for those costs.

It is worth pointing out that if I did not charge for table time the cloths on the practice tables would undoubtedly need replacing shortly after the event to maintain the standard of playing surface we strive for and the likely cost for that would be in the region of £700. Should the SWSA reasonably be asked to cover that entire cost and the costs of refreshments for all the players?

As far as catering is concerned we offered a variety of food including ploughman’s lunch, soup & Roll, pies, pasties, a variety of sandwiches, toasties, cold bar snacks and plain Toast. With the available space we have, and our focus on providing the best playing and spectator venue we can, there is no space for advanced catering but there are a range of pubs and restaurants within 1-2 miles that cater for all tastes. Leaving the venue for a hot meal may also prevent boredom, which is an alternative to practice for those players unwilling to pay £4.

The reason that no practice was available on Friday and Saturday was because the practice room, which WSL did not require as part of the PTC agreement, had been subsequently hired by World Snooker to make promotional photo shoots of the players.

Another misconception is that SWSA based players have an advantage. Let’s be clear; all match tables were covered on Monday and they were out of action to everyone until they were used in the PTC on Wednesday evening. In effect SWSA players had to share our remaining two available practice table with everyone else who booked tables for practice. In reality this meant they had no sustainable practice all week.

We do not allow food and or other refreshments to be brought into SWSA for two reasons. Firstly it will affect our chance of covering our operating costs and secondly we are left with disposing of a large amount of waste and cleaning up the mess.

A closing observation - Since the PTC we have held a full summer school and have just started the European Open Under 18s junior championships which includes 72 players from all over the globe including Russia, Hong Kong, Malta, Belgium, Israel and Germany.

All of these players and their families have paid to travel to Gloucester and stay in Hotels with the hope of winning a major trophy and a modest financial prize.  I wonder if I should be surprised that not one of them has complained about paying for refreshments or using the tables.

Reading between the lines, Mount appears unhappy that a private conversation with an SPA representative was made public when the SPA put their letter to Ferguson on their website.

Mount has made his millions through his other businesses but is a life-long snooker fan and has built a first rate facility as well as raising money for cancer charities close to his heart. He is a good man with the right intentions.

World Snooker charge £10,000 for staging rights so the SWSA have to look to claw this back somehow.

Back in the ‘good old days’ the bar in the players’ room was free to anyone. I was once told it cost the WPBSA £20,000 per tournament in free beer.

Thankfully there are now business principles being applied to a sport which not so long ago had serious financial problems.

The SPA make good points, though, about prize money, much along the lines that I made not so long ago.

But if they want to be taken more seriously then they have to operate in a more professional manner.

Just recently they invited players to take advantage of a deal with a bookmaker offering a 10% refund on losing bets for sports including snooker. World Snooker saw this as an enticement to bet on snooker, which players are banned from doing.

Snooker was, I suspect, included in all innocence by the SPA but it certainly didn’t look good.

The WPBSA was originally the players’ union. The problems began when it tried to fulfil commercial and rules and regulatory activities as well.

Over the years, managers have proved more influential in redressing problems than attempts by independent bodies, but self evidently managers tend to be interested mainly in their own clients.

Players could certainly benefit from a body such as the SPA but only if it is taken seriously by the sport at large.

My suggestion to them is to focus on important areas such as prize money because if a victory can be won here it will make a big difference to players lower down the rankings.

There are also issues which would be better addressed privately so that people such as Mount – who snooker needs – don’t feel unfairly maligned.