Davis believes restructuring in snooker is necessary

Six-time world champion Steve Davis looks ahead to a meeting which may have a major effect on the future of the sport.

The WPBSA board want to change parts of the sport's constitution to give them more flexibilty to invite different people on to the board and change parts of the game.

Players' group backs change

Sir Rodney Walker, chairman of World Snooker - the sport's commercial arm - is hoping to get the support of the members (players and people closely connected to the game) so that he can become the chairman of the WPBSA.

Once that happens it is likely he will be chopping and changing the current board in order to bring in people he believes will help re-organise the sport.

To do that, he needs the support of the players, which is why there is going to be an EGM.

Sir Rodney will be asking members to allow him to have greater influence in developing a strategy for the future.

Both he and the new board will have more control over the structure of tournaments and the ranking system.

That is essentially why there are going to be changes made to the WPBSA board, because the current set feel they cannot deliver the goods.

At the present time 75% of board members have to be ex-players or players and don't have to be experts in procuring sponsors.

But now they feel people need to brought in to run the game as they see fit.

I'm going to go along with the new proposals and I'm sure most the players will too, because we haven't got anything to lose.

We're in a situation where the game is in a very healthy state as far as its popularity is concerned.

But there has been this on-going problem with re-organising the structure of snooker in the 21st century.

In the 1980s there was less competition from other sports, but things have changed since - we've also suffered the financial blow of losing tobacco sponsorship.

My hope is that by allowing people with successful management experience on to board, we can go some way to securing snooker's long-term future.