Marco Fu interview: 'It is heartbreaking and embarrassing that snooker can’t fund 128 players’
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Updated 17/01/2017 at 08:25 GMT
Marco Fu speaks to Desmond Kane about the state of snooker, family commitments and a feeling of underachievement ahead of his opening match against Judd Trump at the Masters.
Marco Fu
Image credit: Reuters
For a man hailing from the gloriously titled Happy Valley in Hong Kong, one could be forgiven for imagining Marco Fu is a contented cueist.
Having turned 39 a week before the start of this year’s Masters at Alexandra Palace, Fu has every right to be satisfied with life officially not due to begin for another year and his game appearing to be sharper than your best bespoke suit from Savile Row.
Fu is eighth in the world, only two places below his highest position of sixth.
He has earned around £166,000 in prize money over the past six months amid a career haul of £2.2m, has appeared in the World and UK Championship semi-finals in 2016 and is snooker’s most recent champion after completing a 9-4 win over John Higgins at the Scottish Open in Glasgow last month.
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Marco Fu claims Scottish Open glory
Yet like some of the sport’s main protagonists, Fu is not only interested in himself or how much money he can trouser when he considers the future health of his sport.
World champions Ronnie O’Sullivan, Mark Selby and Neil Robertson have all spoken out recently about their concern for fellow professionals who struggle away from the television cameras, far away from the crowning glory of the elite Masters invitational event involving the game's top 16 on a tour that caters for 128 players.
“I wouldn’t recommend snooker as a career while there is 128 on the tour either,” said Robertson on Twitter.
ATM it’s top 20 or you’re better off flipping burgers.
Perhaps this is a little bit melodramatic, but there is a point to it. As a regular winner and participant in some of the sport’s biggest events since the millennium, Fu has no obvious concerns surrounding his own predicament.
He collected £70,000 after winning eight straight frames to eclipse Higgins in Glasgow, and is guaranteed £12,500 even if he loses to Judd Trump in the Masters first round on Tuesday afternoon.
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Stephen Henrdy presents Marco Fu with the Scottish Open named after him.
Image credit: Eurosport
World Snooker chairman Barry Hearn has been described as a saviour of snooker having taken over a flagging sport boasting only six events back in 2009.
He passionately continues to express the belief that you will earn enough if you are good enough with this season's tour boasting 18 ranking events and prize money of £10m.
It is certainly true at the higher reaches with number one Selby snagging over £1m from the past two-and-a-half years on the table.
But you don’t have to slip far down the rankings to see the wider issue with the world number 65 Alfie Burden collecting around £48,000 over two years which hardly hints at a land of milk and honey.
It is nobody's fault. There is only so much any sport is worth, and how much snooker is worth depends on how much sponsors are willing to pay. Fu feels the problem is going to have to be confronted.
“With the prize money we have today, I think it would be better to only have the 64,” said Fu.
But if they can increase the prize money and fund the 65 to 128 players in the rankings then it is no problem. If 128 can earn something even when they lose then 128 is okay, but at the moment a 64-player tour is more suitable.
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Marco Fu: This is the best win of my career
“When I turned professional in 1998, it was the end of the golden era for the sport. Tobacco companies were still involved in sponsoring the sport, but that was only for another four or five years.
“Now we are doing a lot better than 10 or 15 years ago, that’s for sure, but we must strive to do better
“It is very difficult if you aren’t having any success.
It is heartbreaking listening to some of the lower ranked players, and listening to their interviews hearing that they are struggling with the finance to keep playing. It is heartbreaking and embarrassing for the boss of snooker that they can’t fund 128 players.
“Something needs to be done to alter this situation."
Fu’s career highlights include wins at the 2007 Grand Prix, the 2013 Australian Open, reaching two World Championship semi-finals in 2006 and 2016, the 2011 Masters final and the final of the UK Championship in 2008.
“The snooker Marco played to win the Scottish Open was some of the best we’ve seen for a long, long time,” said Mark Allen after his 6-5 win over John Higgins on Monday.
If he keeps that up, he’ll be difficult to stop. But Marco will be the first to admit he doesn’t keep that standard up enough otherwise he’d be winning events all the time.
Only O’Sullivan, Hendry, Higgins, Robertson and Selby are ahead of Fu’s 435 centuries in competition.
He continues to feel he has underachieved despite being a mainstay of the professional circuit having lived in Stirling in his early 20s and practised alongside the seven-times world champion Stephen Hendry in the late 1990s.
“I’d say it is about right that I have underachieved simply because I haven’t put in as many hours as I should have,” admits Fu.
At the beginning of my career, I practised a lot because I was single, but compared to other professionals I don’t feel that I’ve put in the hours I should have.
“Not practising properly would be like an hour or only two hours a day, three or four days a week. That just isn’t good enough.
“But before the UK Championship and the Scottish Open last month, I was on my own so I would be going to the club at 9:30am and practising until 5 o’clock for a whole month.
“Unless you are practising smart, just doing hours doesn’t make you better. After the World Championship, I took six or seven weeks off then at the start of the season I wasn’t really practising.”
Fu lost to 17-15 to Selby in the semi-finals of the World Championship, a tournament that has eluded him so far.
With his wife Shirley and two children living in Hong Kong, Fu admits he is torn between committing himself to his family and devoting himself to achieve more in the sport.
“I think I need to be fitter, and improve my levels of stamina especially for the World Championship,” he added.
“If someone told me before I began my career that I would have achieved so much, I would have taken it.
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Marco Fu after winning the Australian Open in 2013.
Image credit: Imago
“My goal starting out was to get to the top 32, and over the years I’ve done a little bit more than that. I think I’ve done more than I expected.
“My motivation is a little bit different from the British-based players.
“For me, I have to work out when is the best time to go home because my family live in Hong Kong.
It is quite tough. Sometimes I’ll say to myself: it doesn’t matter if I lose because I can go back to see the family which obviously isn’t good for your killer instinct.
“Against hungry players who want to win, I think that is a handicap. For me, I’m not sure if I’m ready to dedicate if I want to get to the top five or four in the world.
“I want to strive, but it needs a lot of hard work and I’m still not sure if I can commit to that.”
Yet there will be a no more committed figure than Fu when he takes to the table against Trump on Tuesday afternoon.
Fu’s mild-mannered and amiable approach belies a deep devotion to self-improvement in snooker. And perhaps a self-awareness to those players less fortunate than himself.
Desmond Kane at Alexandra Palace
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