 | |
| Sport | Snooker and English billiards (amateur) |
|---|---|
| Jurisdiction | International |
| Abbreviation | IBSF |
| Founded | 1971 |
| Headquarters | Doha, Qatar |
| President |  Mubarak Al-Khayarin(Qatar) [1] |
| Official website | |
| www | |
The International Billiards & Snooker Federation (IBSF) is an organisation that governs non-professional snooker and English billiards around the world. As of January 2020, the organisation is headquartered in Doha, Qatar. [2]
The World Billiards and Snooker Council (WB&SC) was established in 1971, following a meeting of a number of national associations at a hotel in Malta during the World Amateur Billiards Championship. The associations were dissatisfied that the Billiards and Snooker Control Council was controlling both the UK and international games. Player and journalist Clive Everton served as the first secretary, and his office served as the first office of the WB&SC. In 1973, the WB&SC renamed itself as the International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF) and began to control non-professional billiards and snooker championships. [2] [3] [4]
The aims and objectives of the IBSF are to "co-ordinate, promote and develop the sports of billiards and snooker on a non-professional level" and to manage the competitions. [2]
By the end of 1984, the IBSF had thirty countries as members. [5] As of January 2020, the IBSF has seventy-three affiliated countries categorised into one of the five Olympic regions: Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania. The IBSF board of directors has four executive officers (president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer) plus two representatives from each Olympic region. The executive officers are responsible for the day-to-day running of the Federation and are answerable to IBSF members at the annual general meeting, which is normally held during the period of the IBSF World Snooker Championships. [2]
Source: [6]
49 Nations:
In 2020 Asia Pacific Snooker & Billiards Federation (APBSF) was established in 
Australia with 6 nations. [12] [13]
The IBSF—alongside the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA)—was one of the two snooker-focused organisational members of the World Confederation of Billiards Sports (WCBS). [14] The WCBS is an organisation that promotes cue sports in the form of carom, pool and snooker; one of its aims is to gain the acceptance of cue sports disciplines into the Olympic Games. [14]
The WPBSA terminated its relationship with the IBSF on 31 July 2017, over conflicts involving the two organisations' relative leadership positions within WCBS, making allegations of IBSF misconduct. [15] As a result of the split, the WPBSA has revoked the Professional Main Tour cards that were once afforded to the IBSF World Men's and World Under-21 Champions. On 5 October 2017, WPBSA announced the formation of the World Snooker Federation (WSF), with stated goals similar to those of WCBS but with a focus on amateur and professional snooker, and an invitation for regional and national amateur snooker federations to join WSF. [16]
As the IBSF and WPBSA were unable to come to a formal agreement, as required by the WCBS, both had their WCBS membership terminated in December 2018. [17] In March 2019, the IBSF was reinstated to the WCBS to represent snooker. [18]
Snooker is a cue sport played on a rectangular billiards table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets, one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side. First played by British Army officers stationed in India in the second half of the 19th century, the game is played with twenty-two balls, comprising a white cue ball, fifteen red balls, and six other balls—a yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, and black—collectively called the colours. Using a cue stick, the individual players or teams take turns to strike the cue ball to pot other balls in a predefined sequence, accumulating points for each successful pot and for each time the opposing player or team commits a foul. An individual frame of snooker is won by the player who has scored the most points. A snooker match ends when a player reaches a predetermined number of frames.
Pankaj Arjan Advani is an Indian billiards and professional snooker player. He is a 27-time International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF) world champion. He has won 18 billiards world titles, the IBSF World Billiards Championship on 17 occasions and the World Team Billiards Championship once. In snooker, he won the IBSF World Snooker Championship three times, IBSF World six-red championship twice and the IBSF World Team Cup and IBSF World Team Championship one time each. He has the record number of IBSF world championships. He became a snooker professional in 2012/2013.
Wendy Jans is a Belgian professional snooker and pool player. She has won the IBSF World Snooker Championship for women nine times. She reached her first women's world final at the 2022 World Women's Snooker Championship, but lost 5–6 to Nutcharut Wongharuthai on the final black ball.
The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) is the governing body of professional snooker and English billiards. It is headquartered in Bristol, England. Founded as the Professional Billiard Players Association (PBPA) in 1946, with Joe Davis as chairman, it was revived in 1968 after some years of inactivity and renamed the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association in 1970. Its current chairman is Jason Ferguson.
The World Confederation of Billiards Sports (WCBS) is the international umbrella organization encompassing the major cue sports, including carom billiards, pool games of several varieties, and snooker.
The World Billiards Championship is an international cue sports tournament in the discipline of English billiards, organised by World Billiards, a subsidiary of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA). In its various forms, and usually as a single competition, the title is one of the oldest sporting world championships, having been contested since 1870.
The IBSF World Snooker Championship is the premier non-professional snooker tournament in the world. The event series is sanctioned by the International Billiards and Snooker Federation. A number of IBSF champions have gone on to successful careers in the professional ranks, notably Jimmy White (1980), James Wattana (1988), Ken Doherty (1989), Stuart Bingham (1996), Marco Fu (1997), Stephen Maguire (2000) and Mark Allen (2004). Both Doherty and Bingham have gone on to win the professional World Snooker Championship.
Ng On-yee is a Hong Kong snooker player who has won three IBSF World Snooker Championships and three World Women's Snooker world championships. She held the number one position in the World Women's Snooker world ranking list from February 2018 to April 2019.
Arantxa Sanchis is a female professional English billiards and snooker player from India. She won a gold medal in the Women's Team event at the inaugural IBSF World 6-Red Snooker and Team Snooker Championship in Carlow, Ireland, on 6 October 2013. It was a historic first gold medal for Indian women's snooker at a World Championship. On 27 September 2015, she won the inaugural IBSF World Billiards Championship in Adelaide, Australia. This feat made her the only woman in the world to hold IBSF World titles in both billiards and snooker.
Robby Foldvari is an Australian player of snooker, English billiards, and pool. He is a multi-year World Billiards Champion, and a national-level champion in both snooker and nine-ball pool (2012), as well as a World Games competitor (2013). Outside of competition, he is a coach and television commentator. Foldvari won the Australian Open 8 Ball Pool Championship (2015), completing the royal flush of national titles in every cuesports discipline. In June 2016 he won the Australian Open 10 ball Pool Championship
Cheung Ka Wai, also known as Ka Wai Cheung, is a snooker player from Hong Kong. In February 2024 he won the 2024 WSF Open Championship, earning a two-year tour card on the World Snooker Tour starting with the 2024–25 snooker season.
The 2018–19 snooker season was a series of professional snooker tournaments played between 10 May 2018 and 23 June 2019. The season was made up of ranking tournaments, non-ranking tournaments and variant tournaments. In total, 54 events were competed in the 2018–19 season, beginning with the pro–am 2018 Vienna Open, and ending with the 2019 World Snooker Championship.
Luo Honghao is a Chinese former professional snooker player.
Nutcharut Wongharuthai, better known as Mink Nutcharut, is a Thai snooker player who competes on both the professional World Snooker Tour and the World Women's Snooker Tour. She is the only woman known to have made a maximum break, having achieved the feat during a practice match in March 2019. She is, as of 2023, ranked number one in the world women's snooker rankings.
The year of 2019 included professional tournaments surrounding table-top cue sports. These events include snooker, pool disciplines and billiards. Whilst these are traditionally singles sports, some matches and tournaments are held as doubles, or team events. The snooker season runs between May and April, whilst the pool and billiards seasons run in the calendar year.
Waratthanun Sukritthanes is a snooker player from Thailand. She was the 2018 IBSF World Snooker Championship Women's Champion, and was the runner-up in 2017.
Amee Kamani is an Indian snooker player. She was runner-up in the 2016 International Billiards and Snooker Federation World Snooker championship, losing 0–5 in the final to the defending champion Wendy Jans. Kamani was the 2018 Asian Billiards Sports Championships Ladies Champion after defeating Siripaporn Nuanthakhamjan 3–0 in the final, and was runner-up at the 2014 Australian Open and the 2019 International Billiards and Snooker Federation Women's six-reds snooker championship.
The Billiards and Snooker Control Council (B&SCC) was the governing body of the games of English billiards and snooker and organised professional and amateur championships in both sports. It was formed in 1919 by the union of the Billiards Association and the Billiards Control Club.
Bai Yulu is a snooker player, World junior champion from China.
Siripaporn Nuanthakhamjan, better known as Baipat Siripaporn, is a Thai snooker player who is the reigning world women's snooker champion. With compatriot Waratthanun Sukritthanes, she won the 2019 Women's Snooker World Cup.
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