Sorry abut the one-paragraph response explaining the Olympic process. I seldom post on threads (I really don't have much time for doing so, and I'll try to go back into my cubby hole after this post and get back to my work promoting the sport in the capacity I do), but I was afraid if I tapped the tab button, the post might go public prematurely.
There....I did it.
RE: the playa9 inquiry from 9-26-17 In defending the international bodies of our sport and an organization's President such as Ian Anderson, a couple things you need to understand:
1). Ian Anderson is a strong President who has a great understanding of any international issues within pool sports. He volunteers his time. Every President can be criticized, and I've had my own disagreements with Ian. But overall Ian is a pretty good leader. He alone - and his board of directors - cannot control all aspects of international pool, but they do the best they can in the voluntary positions they hold. This can open them up to disgruntled players and wonderment that they're not doing more. But I don't believe they should apologize for their efforts.
2). When the IOC accepted the WCBS as its permanent member for cue sports in 1998, it recognized pool/billiards/snooker (cue sports in general) as a sport. Feel free to use that fact if you're ever debating the sport vs. game merits with your friends. That pretty much closes the argument in favor of "sport."
3). The various international bodies for our sport - WCBS (IOC-affiliated)/WPA (pool)/IBSF (snooker)/UMB(carom) are not strongly-financially endowed organizations, and in most cases are run by volunteers - not fully-salaried staff - and in some cases....very part-time out of various people's houses. The WPBSA (hitched to the IBSF in snooker under the WCBS banner) [and the current WCBS President is WPBSA Chairman Jason Ferguson] is fairly well endowed financially compared to the others due to the remarkable 40-year television/sponsorship run snooker has had in the UK and Asia, so WPBSA in snooker is the one exception as a world body.
Most of these world bodies do not actually produce their world events. They select local promoters/countries who have an interest in hosting/producing the events - if the body is confident the promoter can finance it. You seldom get a wagon-load of promoters desiring to do this (such events seldom make money for the promoter). Sponsorship of any serious kind is almost non-existent in the USA and is faring a little better in China and parts of Asia where the sport is newer. Not a lot of serious sponsorship in Europe either, but at least it is organized more as sport and does not carry the baggage we have all produced for our sport here in the USA over 150 years.
These world bodies under these conditions do the best they can to insure that a foreign promoter in a foreign land pays out prize money. I've experienced only two occasions in my tenure at WPA that promoters did not pay out prize money for which they were responsible to world events: Ibiza in 1993 and the Women's 9-Ball WC in Quebec in 2000.
While certainly not budgeted by the WPA, as the 2000 WC came closer, the WPA became concerned with the funding by the local promoter for the event. As the Treasurer/Secretary of the WPA at the time - and pre-9-11 and more formal airport security - I stitched $80,000 USD into my jacket carried on the plane....and when the promoter was not able to pay out the prize fund due to added production costs.....the players got paid in USD by the WPA Treasurer onsite. I can only answer that the WPA does the best it can in choosing credible promoters to host sanctioned international events.
4). But why a WPA? Why a UMB? Why an IBSF? I'm a pool player, just like everyone on these threads, and I've been around a long time. Frankly I got tired of seeing USA pro players in the '60s, '70s, '80s and even the '90s post promotional posters for exhibitions and their resumes claiming to be "5-time World Champion this", 3-Time World One-Pocket that, 11-Time World 9-Ball Champion, 26-time World Trick Shot Champion, etc. ad nauseum. A player could win a tournament and claim it was a World Championship; a USA-based promoter could title an event a "World Championship" featuring only USA players and there was no entity to disqualify the event as such.
These world bodies - weak in the eyes of some of you viewers that some of them might be - still serve very necessary functions for our sport internationally:
1). They allow us to be formally affiliated to the IOC international structure of sport.
2). Many national cue sport organizations overseas support these world bodies and gain government support for doing so.
3). These bodies are the ONLY ones that can formally title an event as a true world championship.
Our sport needs world organizations to better bring the international players and national federations together in an organized fashion and to give those outside our sport who might judge us a contact by which they might involve themselves in our sport in the future. I can come up with many more reasons why the questioned existence of ONE international pool body - the WPA - is important....BUT if it only serves the three purposes above and nothing else, it's existence validated.
If at some point the international sport gains greater sponsorship and WPA can hire full-time staff (as has WPBSA), the WPA will have a better handle on correcting some of the issues that our pro sport must face. If you need to vent against the WPA, offer some constructive criticism and don't just dismiss them as unnecessary weights on our sport. They ARE necessary!
