Ronnie O’Sullivan has blasted World Snooker on social media – just a day after he won the Champion of Champions title for a third time.

The five-times world champion could face trouble in the coming weeks from snooker bosses after claiming on Twitter that the body in charge of the game “did not care about players” and only cared about money.

Another tweet he sent out to his hundreds of thousands followers said the professional world snooker tour was run “through fear and greed”.

His comments came after he asked his followers if they felt it was right for Kyren Wilson to play on the opening day of the Northern Ireland Open – just less than 24 hours after the climax of his Champion of Champions final defeat to him.

When Twitter user James Daley responded to O’Sullivan’s tweet by labelling the situation “ridiculous” – the Rocket replied: “The problem is World Snooker don’t care about the players, all they care about is making money.”

O’Sullivan, who is close to becoming the first ever player to make 1,000 competitive century breaks, has publicly criticised some of snooker’s ranking events in recent times.

Ronnie O’Sullivan. Picture by Monique Limbos

In October he blasted the venue for the English Open and said it smelt of urine and openly admitted in front of the TV cameras he was not looking forward to playing in this week’s Northern Ireland Open just minutes after winning a thrilling Champion of Champions final against Wilson.

A further tweet he sent out said: “Also the snooker system is built on fear and greed, greed by the owners, and fear that if you don’t play in all the little shabby events you won’t get into play the decent exclusive events #justsaying.”

O’Sullivan’s scathing remarks could see him face disciplinary action for bringing the game into disrepute – though this has not yet been confirmed.

In fact Barry Hearn, chairman of World Snooker, has hit back on Twitter calling O’Sullivan’s comments “ill-informed”.

The World Snooker supremo responded to a tweet from Gaz Trew who asked Hearn why O’Sullivan is allowed to make such comments. He replied: “(O’Sullivan’s comments) usually ill informed and not thought out in the interest of the sport as a whole.”