Mark Allen believes snooker could be on the verge of civil war – and has suggested BOYCOTTS to force change.

Scots star John Higgins and fellow world champions Mark Selby and Luca Brecel opened themselves up to disciplinary action from the World Snooker Tour for snubbing next week’s Northern Ireland Open for a lucrative exhibition in China, which has since been postponed until December. The issue of player freedom to enjoy bumper sideline paydays has erupted in recent weeks, with the players’ contracts and WST’s handling of the situation under fire.

Allen has now branded WST’s running of the sport as “embarrassing” and “amateurish” with big-money offers from China outweighing the prize money for reaching the latter stages of the Home Nations events "I think the game is in disarray, it’s gone nowhere in recent years,” said world No.3 Allen. "I do not think that anything will change until the players revolt and in my view we need to boycott collectively as top players missing an event, that’s the only way things will ever change.

“The statements WST have been putting out are amateurish. To say that they’ve treated the players with respect is laughable. There’s a lot of guaranteed money for these exhibitions. Whereas the prize money for the Home Nations in particular has really stagnated. Ultimately if prize money is bigger in events like Belfast then people wouldn’t even consider exhibitions.”

Seven-time world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan ripped into the WST on Tuesday and Allen backed him up, saying: “Ronnie’s hit the nail on the head with a lot of the things he’s said. He’s absolutely right. They’re able to hide behind the players’ contract. That doesn’t mean it’s right or it’s fair. "I just know if I was one of the players involved then I would have taken a stand because the contract we have is far too restrictive.

“If you don’t sign the contract you can’t play snooker, so ultimately you have to sign it because I want to play tournaments, compete and earn a living for my family but that doesn’t mean I’m happy with a lot of things in the contract.

Last night WST hit back at Allen’s claims in a stinging statement. It said: “We have offered Mark three meetings in the past three months, two of which face to face, and he has refused to engage. We had finally arranged to meet with him in the next week but he has clearly decided that he would not want to do so and has made these public comments instead. We strongly refute these allegations which are false and defamatory and will be taking necessary action.”