Five-time world snooker champion Ronnie O’Sullivan has claimed the indoor smoking ban is killing UK snooker.

The outspoken player claimed the culture of snooker halls changed after the ban and has lead to a decline.

He said: “The smoking ban killed off the clubs. It killed off snooker culture. There might have 100 clubs in London at one point but now there is just maybe five or six proper ones left.

“King’s Cross - that used to be a proper club, but now it’s got music and changed a lot.”

The smoking ban was introduced in England in 2007 making it illegal to smoke in all enclosed work places.

Last month the player branded the venue for the this year’s English Open a “hellhole” and claimed he could smell urine in the player interview area.

O'Sullivan is one of the biggest names in the game (
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PA)

He said event organiser World Snooker had “cut corners” because he felt the K2 Leisure Centre in Crawley was not of a good enough standard for the tournament.

He said: “It’s such a bad venue, it demotivates you to want to play. This is about as bad as I’ve ever seen. It’s a bit of a hellhole. I don’t know what this gaff is, but I’ve just done an interview and all I can smell is urine.”

World Snooker claimed O’Sullivan’s comments bore no resemblance to feedback from other players about the venue. O’Sullivan was speaking ahead of the release of his third novel, The Break, one of a series of books he has set in gangland Soho in London.

He used to play at a club in Soho as a boy after being dropped off by his father who used to run sex shops in the area.

O'Sullivan claims snooker halls are dying out (
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CAMERA PRESS/Francesco Guidicini)

O’Sullivan added: “It’s shut down now. We took two mirrors from there when it closed, they’re still at my mum’s place.

“If I go down there people still hello Ronnie and ask how my dad is doing. It has definitely cleaned up around there now.

“I’m not sure if the kind of characters that were there are there any more. I’m sure there are some but maybe not all of them. It used to be full-on, you know.”