WPBSA Recognised at Hurun UK-China Awards
The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) has received a prestigious award at the 2026 Hurun UK-China Awards which were held last week at the InterContinental London, Park Lane.
Attended by WPBSA Chairman Jason Ferguson, who was recently part of the delegation that accompanied UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on his recent visit to China, the awards saw approximately 180 attendees including entrepreneurs and leading figures from the UK-China business community.
As part of the Awards ceremony, the WPBSA was recognised for its “Outstanding contribution to the UK-China Relationship” through its “Promotion of Snooker within China.”
Ferguson, who was in attendance with Paul Hamilton, CEO and founder of World Championship title sponsors Halo, was honoured to receive the award from Rupert Hoogewerf, Founder, Chairman and Chief Researcher of Hurun, alongside Ada Shan, lead organiser of the event and Hurun’s chief representative for UK and Europe.
Ferguson told the China Daily:
“When I started out in China you would struggle to find a snooker table,” Ferguson told China Daily. “It’s very nice to win this recognition. Now there are now nearly 220 million fans dedicated to the sport in China, and we’ve just become the number one sport watched on the state national television channel, CCTV 5. There are 60 million people playing snooker, and there are a staggering 300,000 billiard clubs. I mean the sport is just booming there.
“It’s really gone from strength to strength, it’s been a marriage made in heaven. It’s a people business that we built on the ground, about participation, grassroots, getting people active and playing. And the government and sports authorities bought into that. Where it’s gone has been a great journey of my life.
“The growth has not come without challenges and hard miles. We’ve gone from city to city, traveling on China’s wonderful trains and in cars, promoting the sport, consistently over years and years. We’ve left something in every city we’ve been to, be it a few snooker tables, a club, or an academy, and we’ve now covered a nation with a sport.
“The rest is history: we now have a world snooker champion from China, Zhao Xintong, and just recently Bai Yulu became the world number one women’s snooker player, and she also competes on the main tour with the men, as she is so good.
“Snooker is an interesting sport, we’re a precision sport, but it is also very technical and is a very mental sport. Snooker is extreme technical skill, coupled with a game of chess over the top of it. There is amazing strategy in our sport, and a deep mental strength is required to be the best, and I think it has suited China very, very well.”
