Venue Crondon Park Golf Club Country England Organisation(s) Matchroom Sport | Location Stock Established 2008 Format Non-ranking event | |
Championship League is a non-ranking snooker tournament, devised by Matchroom Sport. All tournaments have been held at the Crondon Park Golf Club since its debut in 2008. Judd Trump is the reigning champion.
History and format
The event was introduced in 2008 by Barry Hearn to provide additional competition and a qualifier to the Premier League Snooker. 25 professionals take part, there is no audience and every match is broadcast via internet only. Players earn money for every frame won and there are also prizes for being a semi-finalist, runner-up and winner of each group, with more money involved in the winners group.
In the first two years all matches in the group stages were the best of four, meaning that the matches could ended in a draw as all the four frames were played, and the semi-finals and final was best of five. From 2010 all matches are best of five.
The competition runs over eight groups, each consisting of seven players. From the league stage of the first seven groups the top four qualify for a play-off, the winner of which qualifies for the winners group. The bottom two players of each league are eliminated and the remaining four moves to the next group, where they are joined by three more players until the seventh group. The winners play in the final group with the overall winner taking a place in that year's Premier League Snooker until 2012, and in that year's Champion of Champions from 2013.
There have been four maximum breaks in the history of the tournament. Shaun Murphy compiled the first at the 2014 event against Mark Davis in their league stage match of group two. Barry Hawkins achieved the second one-year later at the 2015 event against Stephen Maguire in their league stage match of group one. David Gilbert achieved the third one at the 2015 event against Xiao Guodong in their league stage match of group seven. Mark Davis produced the fourth in the competition's history in the 2017 event in the deciding frame of the Group Three playoff final against Neil Robertson.