Saudi Arabia has cancelled a landmark snooker tournament , drawing shock from fans and outrage from players as one of the biggest prizes in the sport disappears from the calendar overnight.
The World Snooker Tour (WST), which manages the sport, made the announcement this weekend, after weeks of speculation that Riyadh would end the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters.
The kingdom has been rolling back its spending on sports following a review of its financial commitments, including a $4 billion ski resort which was set to host the Winter Olympics.
"Following constructive discussions between The Saudi Billiard and Snooker Federation and Matchroom following the conclusion of the 2025 editions, it has been mutually agreed not to proceed with future editions of the World Pool Championship and the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters," the WST said in a statement.
The abrupt announcement has been slammed by players and snooker officials who have demanded clarity about the decision to end the masters tournament just two years into a 10-year deal with some of the players only finding out the news by email on Saturday.
”What a disappointment. Without sounding rude, something's gone wrong for us to lose that tournament. What's happened to the 10-year contract? It's just been blown out of the water," snooker player Barry Hawkins said.
"We don't get no explanation, nothing, which is very, very annoying. We just get some stupid email saying it's been stopped. No explanation, nothing. Very disappointing - it's a massive tournament to lose. It'd be interesting to see the reason behind it."
The world's sixth-ranked player, Mark Williams, was also puzzled by the abrupt closure of the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters, the first major snooker tournament to be hosted in the Middle East for nearly two decades.
"Now these guys like Neil Robertson and Judd Trump, they haven't got a chance to defend that £500,000, that's just going to be wiped off, and there’s no tournament to replace that," he said.
"Other people down the rankings are going to suffer as well. We all thought it was on for 10 years, but for whatever reason, it's been called off."
The Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters was supposed to put the kingdom on the sport's map, along with the Riyadh Season's World Masters of Snooker, where players could potentially win $1 million by potting a special 'golden ball'.
Saudi Arabia's interest in the sport was viewed as an essential economic lifeline, opening the sport to a new market, with snooker's future widely in question. Saudi Arabia had also opened a snooker academy, with the involvement of Ronnie O'Sullivan, widely viewed as the sport's greatest player.
Barry Hearn, the sports promotor who was responsible for snooker's rise during the 1980s, had hinted that Saudi Arabia might pull the plug on the tournament.
"Saudi is a problem. We (Matchroom promotion company) don't know where that problem's going to lead to but we've got good influence there, particularly through the boxing, and all the other sports that we do, so we will be fine," he told The Sun last week.
"We can’t interfere with what’s going on at the moment. This is a terribly difficult time for the Middle East."
It is unclear what the future of these will be as Saudi Arabia looks to cut back on spending commitments, particularly in sport, while the war on Iran has also forced the kingdom to cancel this year's Grand Prix.