Shaun Murphy springs to defence of Crucible after Hossein Vafaei's comments

The start of this year's World Championship has been overshadowed by verbal potshots at the iconic venue that has hosted the tournament since 1977.

Responding to Vafaei's comments, 2005 champion Murphy said: "Maybe having not grown up in the UK, Hossein's not as emotionally connected to this tournament as many of the UK players are?

"This is holy ground for snooker players and Hossein should remember that. He said he doesn't want to come back. Don't come back."

Vafaei lost 10-5 in the opening round to former champion Judd Trump but kicked up quite a stink with his post-match comments, saying the tournament would be better suited to a new venue in Saudi Arabia or China.

"Everything's so bad - if you ask me if I want to come back here, I would tell you no way," he said.

"Forget the history, you want to go somewhere really nice as a player. You walk 'round the Crucible and it smells really bad. You go to other countries, and everything is shiny.

"The practice room - do you see anything special? I feel like I'm practising in a garage."

Murphy, a member of the WPBSA Players Board, accepts that the Crucible is small with less than 1,000 seats but believes it should still continue to host the tournament beyond 2027 when the current contract expires.

"If World Snooker Tour turned up tomorrow to do a site visit they probably wouldn't come here because it's not big enough. There's nothing we can do about that," he said.

"But this is holy ground and it's almost sacrilege for a professional snooker player to be so openly critical about our home. The World Championship, in my opinion, should stay in this building. But it's economics isn't it?"

Vafaei is not the only player to express his dislike for the Crucible. Seven-times winner and this year's favourite Ronnie O'Sullivan also said it was time to move on.

"I don't like the Crucible. I don't think you can get in and out of it," the Londoner told The Sun in the build-up.

"I think definitely it's a wise decision to take it away from Sheffield."