The Home Nations series of world ranking events to run during the 2016/17 season will each feature two amateur wild cards from the host nation.
The series will comprise the new English Open, Irish Open and Scottish Open as well as the existing Welsh Open.
Each tournament will feature 128 players in a flat draw. Once all professional tour players have entered, the two wild cards will have next priority, followed by Q School top-ups.
The wild cards will be selected by the respective National Governing Bodies of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, using criteria to be agreed between each NGB and World Snooker.
A similar system was used for the recent Riga Masters ranking event, where amateurs Darren Morgan and Tatiana Vasiljeva were handed wild cards. Morgan enjoyed a superb run to the semi-finals before losing to eventual champion Neil Robertson.
The intention of introducing wild cards is to provide an incentive for the best amateur players to compete in their NGB tournaments with the chance to qualify for a televised ranking event.
Each of the Home Nations events will have total prize money of £366,000, with the winner to receive £70,000. All four tournaments will be televised by Eurosport. Any player winning all four events will receive a massive £1 million bonus.
For full details of the Home Nations events including venues and ticket information see www.worldsnooker.com/tickets
Home Nations events
English Open – Manchester, October 10-16
Irish Open – Belfast, November 14-20
Scottish Open – Glasgow, December 12-18
Welsh Open –Cardiff, February 13-19
