Following the speculation concerning the withdrawal of Jimmy White from this week’s tournament due to what World Snooker described as ‘visa problems’, Jimmy’s management group On Q Promotions have today issued a statement which will hopefully clarify the position…
As you are aware, Jimmy White was forced to pull out of the China Open due to a problem with his VISA.
Jimmy attended a recent Snooker Fayre in China to help promote snooker on the BCE stand.
As a result of his work for BCE, they arranged a one-month VISA for him, on his behalf.
Jimmy then travelled to Thailand to continue to promote snooker by taking part in a number of exhibitions.
As he went to board his flight from Thailand to China, it became apparent that his VISA, despite being valid for one-month, was only valid for one visit therefore rendering it invalid for his return to China.
World Snooker and their colleagues in China did their best to overcome the VISA issue but were unfortunately unsuccessful due to it being a weekend.
Jimmy is grateful for World Snooker’s assistance and would like to thank those who attempted to solve the problem.
Jimmy takes full responsibility for the error admitting that he should have checked that the VISA was a multi-visit VISA. He is devastated to be missing out on the opportunity to play in this great event in front of the passionate Chinese fans.
Jimmy would like to express his sincere apologies to everyone involved for his withdrawal and we reiterate that everything possible was done to prevent this.
Paul Mount, Managing Director of On Q Promotions commented
“Our clients, which include Jimmy White, choose which services they want us to provide for them, from our array of services, and which ones they prefer to do themselves.
Several of our players prefer arranging their own travel and associated documentation, especially when they travel frequently and need regular access to their passport.
For these clients we merely check with them before events that they are covered and on the odd occasion where we identify an issue we generally take over and sort things out very quickly.”
He continued “On this occasion we were not involved in Jimmy’s travel arrangements and are devastated for Jimmy and the Chinese fans especially as Jimmy has worked so hard this year to rediscover his form and in recent weeks has been striking the ball as well as he ever has.
It is not an ideal end to the season for Jimmy but it has provided him with additional motivation to continue working hard so that he starts next season well.
He will be especially keen to qualify for the Chinese events.”