Further to my post earlier in the week where I questioned the mention of a “Hotshots” scheme, the players involved have now been confirmed on the BBC website. They are Mark Selby, Mark Allen, Jamie Cope, Daniel Wells and of course Michael Georgiou as we already knew.
It will be interesting to see what this will entail and how exactly the scheme will be promoted as so far (as David Hendon has noted), the announcement appears to have been pretty low key, being made solely through the BBC.
Here is an interesting piece on one of this season’s tour debutants Michael Georgiou as reported in the Metro last week. Georgiou, the winner of the prestigious World Under 21 Championship last season, is quoted on the financial struggle that faces players at his level, a situation not helped by defeat in his first two matches of the season. This is particularly significant due to the lack of prize money available in the early qualifying rounds, meaning it is crucial from both a financial and a ranking point of view that players can a win matches and run deep into a tournament.
It must be pointed out however that as is suggested by WSA’s Ivan Hirschowitz within the article, the rewards at the top of the game are significant. This is demonstrated by Ronnie O’Sullivan taking £250,000 for winning the World Championship last season and an overall prize fund that is almost £200,000 up on last year. If players like Georgiou can work hard during these early years and succeed therefore then hopefully they will be well rewarded in the end.
Aside from the financial situation though, the part of the article that I found to be the most intriguing is that referring to Georgiou as being “one of five young hotshot ambassadors” in a campaign to improve the image of snooker.
It must be said that this is the first I have heard of this so if anyone has any information on it and who the other four players are then drop me an email or leave a comment under this article. It sounds like a revamped version of the Young Players of Distinction Scheme that helped the likes of Shaun Murphy and Stephen Maguire at the start of their careers though anything more official on this would be great.