They accuse organisers of failing to promote the star-studded event
The Hong Kong Billiard and Snooker Control Council yesterday defended its promotion and ticketing arrangements for the Euro-Asia Snooker Master's Challenge following complaints by fans about the event's lack of promotion.
The council's chairman, Arthur Tong, said almost 80 per cent of the 4,400 tickets to the star-studded four-day tournament - part of the government's post-Sars relaunch campaign - had been made available to the public.
'We saw what happened about the Real Madrid game and wanted to make sure we wouldn't commit the same mistake,'' Mr Tong said. 'That's why we've made the ticket sales as open as possible and left only very few tickets for internal purchases by our members.''
The Hong Kong Football Association came under fire this month for reserving almost half of the 40,000 tickets for the Real Madrid game for internal purchases.
However, many local snooker fans complained that they had not heard about the championship, which begins on Thursday at the Convention and Exhibition Centre and features the likes of current world No1 Mark Williams, local wonder-kid Marco Fu and former world champions Jimmy White and Stephen Hendry.
Cheng Chi-man, who plays snooker at least three nights a week, said he was shocked by the news. 'I haven't heard anything about this tournament until you told me,' he said. 'I haven't seen any poster about it and I am pretty sure none of my friends know anything about it as nobody has mentioned anything.