The World Confederation of Billiards Sports (WCBS), international umbrella organisation for all major cue sports, will hold an Extraordinary General Assembly to amend its constitution after announcing it does not officially recognise the newly formed World Snooker Federation (WSF).

The WCBS, formed in 1992 to promote the inclusion of billiard sports in the Olympics - which requires a single representative organisation - serves as a recognised platform for carom/billiards, pool and snooker world governing bodies.

As well as being affiliated to the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), the WCBS has linked with the amateur game, initially through International Billiards and Snooker Federation.

In 2013 the WCBS agreed to recognise the WSF as a reconfigured version of the amateur governing body as per an agreement between the IBSF and the WPBSA.

In summer 2017, according to the WCBS, its Board was told this agreement between the IBSF and WPBSA had "never materialised".

The new version of the WSF was officially launched in October last year by the WPBSA and earlier this month held its first Championships in Malta.

A WCBS release outlined how the WSF was introduced in the WCBS Constitution in 2013 "in order to represent snooker and replace the International Billiard & Snooker Federation (IBSF)".

It added: "This was agreed to at the 2013 General Assembly in the UK.

"It was promised at the time by the IBSF and WPBSA that an agreement to create a new organisation was imminent."

Chinese teenager Luo Honghao after winning the inaugural WSF mixed championship in Malta ©WSF
Chinese teenager Luo Honghao after winning the inaugural WSF mixed championship in Malta ©WSF

The statement added: "On this basis, the WCBS accepted the word of those two snooker groups and made the name change in the Constitution from IBSF to WSF.

"In summer 2017, the Board of the WCBS was informed that the Agreement between IBSF and WPBSA 'never materialised'.

"Due to the short timeframe, the name remains in our constitution as the snooker member being the WSF.

"The only WSF that the WCBS was to recognise was the one that was being formulated in 2013 between the IBSF and WPBSA, not any other."

Regarding the official launch of the WSF in October of last year, the release continues: "The WCBS was extremely surprised by this communication.

"At that point, regarding to the decision taken in 2013 and the current dispute between IBSF and WPBSA, the WCBS has no other choice to find that the WSF as it was intended in 2013 doesn’t exist.

"Which means the only snooker groups that the WCBS is able to acknowledge are the IBSF and WPBSA.

"In order to clarify the situation and to amend the WCBS Constitution, the Board will call an Extraordinary General Assembly."