After the drama in Macau, Mark Selby says the Finnish exhibition “blew my mind.”

After being one of five players barred from participating in an exhibition in Macau during the Northern Ireland Open earlier this season, Mark Selby acknowledges that he is perplexed as to why he was permitted to play in an exhibition in Finland during the Shoot Out.

Selby faced Neil Robertson in front of roughly 2,000 spectators on Saturday at the exhibition in Tampere, Finland, after Luca Brecel was forced out.

Selby was perplexed as to why the tournament, which appeared to be excellent and demonstrated the high level of interest in snooker in the area, was let to proceed while another event created such a stir.

Selby, Luca Brecel, John Higgins, Ali Carter, and Thepchaiya Un-Nooh were among the five players scheduled to participate in an exhibition in Macau in October. However, the World Snooker Tour stepped in, citing the Northern Ireland Open, a ranking event held in Belfast, as the reason.

WST said that if the five guys competed in Macau, they would be in violation of their player contracts. Fortunately, the event was rescheduled for December, so they were spared from having to make that option.

They did, however, lose out because they didn’t play in Belfast or Macau that week because they had already left Northern Ireland.

But Selby and Robertson were delighted to be able to perform in Tampere on Saturday, and the Leicester jester acknowledges he doesn’t see the difference as a ranking event was going on in Swansea at the same time.

When asked if there were any problems getting permission to play in Finland, Selby replied, “No.” which is peculiar. that was still in conflict with the Shoot Out, which was identical to what we were doing with Macau, and that really blew my head, but it seems to have been passed.

“I’m not sure.” Honestly, I’m tired of caring about it.

When asked to explain the circumstances, the World Snooker Tour declined to comment.

During the BBC’s broadcast of the UK Championship, six-time world champion Steve Davis implied that Macau was not going to happen because it was going to be televised, which would definitely go against the terms of the players’ contract.

However, part-organiser of the Macau event Victoria Shi told Metro.co.uk that the exhibition was never intended to be televised or streamed.

Unrest is being caused by players’ uncertainty over what they can and cannot do outside of professional events, to be sure.

Shaun Murphy stated on his onefourseven podcast that he did not think the players’ and WST’s disagreement over the players’ contract and its interpretation would end soon.

“This is not going to go away,” declared the seventh-ranked player in the world. The players, represented by the WPBSA Players’ Body, are engaged in a severe struggle with WST over their player contracts.

This is not going to end. These two parties are going to argue over this, and I’m not sure which way it will go, so this is only going to pick up steam and become more serious.

In cheerier news for the sport, Selby said the Finnish exhibition was a great success and hopes that it can encourage more events and bigger tournaments to be staged in the country.

‘The venue was amazing with 2,000 people,’ he said. ‘There’s great appetite out there in Scandinavia.

‘I was speaking to Robin Hull, who put on the event, he was a former player himself and he was saying he was surprised it’s taken so long for snooker to go out there.

It has been incredibly well-liked there for years thanks to assistance from Eurosport. Hopefully we can arrange a tournament out there at some point. A few of the boys are heading out there in May for an eight-man event.

It’s nice that they have the crowds. Our goal is to serve as a platform, if you will, for the tournament’s introduction. We’re trying to spread the word about it, and if WST notices the kind of crowds we’re drawing, they may host a tournament there and create another Germany.

“Hopefully Finland can be another one. We’ve been to Germany for the last four or five years, and the crowds there are always great.”