22.10.08

MURPHY'S PART OF THE UNION

Shaun Murphy has become the latest big name to give his backing to a new players’ union, the Professional Snooker Players 'Association.

It has already received a thumbs up from John Higgins, Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry.

And today Murphy tells the Sheffield Star: "I think it’s a great idea. It's great news and I fully support it.

"It’s something that all the major sports have. I think it’s about time something like this happened and the players can have their say.

“I’m surprised it hasn’t been done before. There’s been a lot of upset in snooker over the last 20 years so it’s funny it's taken 20 years to get up and running.

“If it had been here 15 years ago maybe we wouldn’t have had the problems we’ve had.”

I’ve already heard it put about that the new body is a front for Barry Hearn (Matchroom) and Pat Mooney (World Series) to ‘take over the game.’

Actually, Hearn and Mooney have made it clear that, once the PSPA is set up, they will withdraw from having anything to do with running it.

The first test of the union’s strength will be when it is required to step in on a player’s behalf over some row or another.

There’s no reason why it can’t co-exist reasonably happily alongside the WPBSA.

That said, when you look at the political unrest that has blighted the sport over the years this may seem like a naive hope.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

forget Union Murph - get along to Relate!

andy said...

I don't know how many businesses Murphy has run before, but he seems a bright bloke. He must realise that somebody with a serious interest in the game and the association has to run the association, or it would wither, fail and die.

It's the same with any business/organisation.

Anonymous said...

I do hope that the new union acts like a PFA type-body. The signs so far look as though they will.

Seeing as the WPBSA is effectively a members club, and players could change board members (if they wished) under the current governing body, it would be unfortunate if they was to be a split in future.

But as I said, that seems unlikely, and it seems as if the players (as well as Hearn and Mooney) are channelling this in a positive way.