World Snooker Championship 2024: Hossein Vafaei’s Crucible criticism ‘almost sacrilege’ – Shaun Murphy

Former world champion Shaun Murphy has described Hossein Vafaei’s criticism of the Crucible Theatre as “almost sacrilege”, saying the Iranian has “not helped the sport at all”.

On Sunday, world number 19 Vafaei said the Crucible, which has hosted the World Snooker Championship since 1977, “smells really bad”, the practice room is like a “garage” and the tournament should move elsewhere.

After his 10-5 win over Lyu Haotian, Murphy responded to those comments, with a passionate defence of the venue, regarded as the sport’s home.

“This is a working theatre, it’s not a purpose-built snooker venue,” said Murphy. “We’re coming up to the 50th anniversary of snooker being here and if World Snooker Tour turned up tomorrow and did a site visit, they would probably not come here because it’s not big enough, but there’s nothing we can do about that.

“But this is holy ground. It’s almost sacrilege for a professional snooker player to be so openly critical of our home. Hossein should educate himself on how our tour works in relationships with the WST and our broadcast partners, our venues and how special this place is.”

Murphy – who became world champion at the age of 22 in 2005 and who faces Scotland’s Stephen Maguire in the last 16 later this week – felt Vafaei’s quotes were disappointing.

“Does he think he is helping our sport grow by being so openly critical of one of our biggest partners? He has not helped the sport at all,” added Murphy.

“I was always taught by my mum if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything.”