Snooker told to scrap 'worst rule ever' that would drastically change the sport

Snooker chiefs have been urged to ditch the 'worst rule ever seen' as part of a major overhaul of the sport's structure to entice a younger audience. Professional player Dave Gilbert has called for a sweeping review of the rulebook in order to bring snooker up to modern standards, as he fears prospective fans are bored with the lengthy nature of matches.

The 43-year-old turned pro back in 2002 and reached the World Championship semi-finals on two occasions, so it is fair to say he has some authority in how the game works.

And he has pointed to the foul and miss rule, which refers to when a player fails to hit the ball and the referee judges that the player didn't make a good enough attempt, as the one that needs scrapping.

"The miss rule is the worst rule I've ever seen!" Gilbert told the

"When there's 14 reds on the table and you're playing someone like Mark Selby, an incredible player, if you say, 'Mark, here's £10,000 to hit a red', then he'll hit a red.

"Snookering somebody now is almost pointless because they're basically trying to miss the ball for three or four goes. A foul is not enough to try and encourage somebody to hit the balls. They're trying to get the thin edge, flick it safe. I do it, I get it, you use the rule to your advantage, but there's no point to a snooker anymore.

"It takes forever to put the balls back, it slows the game up. If you just made it foul, ball-in-hand, bang, people will hit the ball. And if they don't, then the geezer who played a good shot to get a snooker has a reward. The amount of times there is zero reward...

"I hate the miss rule, so I'd definitely change that."

The Angry Farmer is a co-owner of a snooker club, Potters, in his local town of Swadlincote. He has a vested interest in attracting the new younger generation to snooker and thinks shortening games to 11 frames is the way do just that.

"I think best of 11 [frames] is the bang on format for any match, I don't think we need to play any more than that. I like the short formats because snooker's boring!" he added.

"You can't change the World Championship, never, but I'd change the qualifying back to best of 11. No one needs to play best of 19, I prefer it as a best of 11.

"I can't believe that some of these people want to play best of 19s. The World Championship [qualifying] changed to best of 11, there was a lot of screaming and moaning but for me it was far better.

"I wouldn't want to be a ref for hardly any of them matches of best of 19, I feel sorry for them."