KARACHI: Player-power has compelled the Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Federation (PBSF) to revise the prize money of domestic competitions, daily allowance during events and monthly remuneration of top eight cueists, it emerged on Tuesday.

Dawn has learnt that the top cueists of the country delayed the signing of annual contracts offered by the games controlling body, until their demands are met.

“Yes, the players presented their demands on the eve of the 43rd National Snooker Championship recently and we had accepted some of them,” the PBSF president Munawwar Hussain Shaikh told Dawn on Tuesday.

He regretted that the players should have submitted their demands earlier and not a day before the country’s premier championship of the baize game.

The PBSF chief said from now onwards, the winner of three national ranking tournaments will be entitled to get Rs1,00,000.

Earlier, only the winner of the national championship used to get Rs1,00,000.

He said the players’ daily allowance has been raised from Rs 2,000 to Rs2,500 during the domestic events.

The monthly remuneration of the top eight players as per national ranking has also been revised.

According to the revised plan, No 1 ranked who used to get Rs 8,000 per month will now be paid Rs12,000. No 2 will also be given Rs12,000 instead of Rs7,000 while No 3 to 8 will be entitled to get Rs10,000 instead of Rs5,000.

Besides, the PBSF gives Rs5,000 apiece to top six juniors per month.

The conveyance allowance of the local cueists has been raised from Rs500 to Rs1,000 during their participation in the ranking events.

He said the PBSF will not bow down on their demands to allow the top two cueists of the national championship to feature in the Asian as well as the world championships and to retain top 24 instead of 12 after the third ranking event.

“We’ve assured national champion a ticket for the Asian and world events while selection of other cueist (s) is our discretion,” he added.

Continuing, he said, we’ ve turned down the players demand of retaining top 24 aimed at giving maximum exposure to the youth.

“We’re working for the employment of some deserving cueists as it is not in our hands, the PBSF president told the players in response to their another demand of providing employment to the cueists on merit.

Published in Dawn, March 7th, 2018