John Higgins has criticised Ronnie O'Sullivan's assertion that he would not encourage his children to take up snooker.
Following his victory over Michael Georgiou on Tuesday, O'Sullivan said that if he had a son who wanted to be a snooker player, he would not let him take up the sport.
"I thought it was a disgrace what he was saying about young kids," Higgins told Eurosport after his 4-1 victory over Noppon Saengkham at the Scottish Open.
"Saying to young kids, 'Don't play snooker', I thought it was dreadful for someone as good as that to sit there and say that.
"If my dad had heard Steve Davis or Jimmy White saying ‘Don’t get your kids into it’. If [I had then wanted to play snooker] my dad would be saying 'Nah, Steve Davis says you should not be playing snooker, so I am not giving you the money to go down and practise’.
"I thought that was terrible of Ronnie saying that – he should know better."
John Higgins calls Ronnie O'Sullivan comments 'a disgrace'
Higgins did agree with O'Sullivan's suggestion that paying expenses to players who are eliminated in the first round of tournaments would make snooker a more viable career option.
"He is right what he is saying about prize money," said four-time world champion Higgins.
"I don’t think the top players would miss it off the winning cheque. Judd Trump won the Champion of Champions, he won £150,000 and I won £60,000. If you took say £20,000 off Judd, he would not miss that and that would funnel down into the youngsters.
"A lot of them are struggling, but it's a tough sport.
"I've been in chats with people, and they don't think the heartrate gets going [in snooker]. They don't think it's an Olympic sport - I know they've been trying to get there.
"It can teach you in so many other ways when you're growing up. It can teach you manners, arithmetic. You learn how to act around adults. It's a great sport."
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