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John Higgins has told Eurosport that World Snooker is "pathetic" in its organisation of snooker.

Former world number one Higgins, who organised the debut season of the World Series of Snooker in 2008, lambasted the world governing body for failing to evolve its system of ranking events to embrace the growing appeal of snooker in mainland Europe.

"I'm really excited about taking snooker to new countries," he said. "I've been a snooker player all my life, and one day my manager Pat Mooney asked me where I was playing next week. Wales, I said; then Telford and Aberdeen.

"He asked me: when do you play in other countries? We don't, I said. He says, if we contact some other European countries, do you think some of the players would come if we started arranging our own tournaments there? And I thought he was on to something.

"Coming to new countries, you really see the excitement in people's faces. Europe is just like Britain was when I first turned professional. It's a buzz, something that's happening, like a volcano about to erupt. I get the exact same feeling when we come to Poland or Germany.

"In Berlin there were 1400 people in each session then just a few weeks later we went to the Northern Ireland Trophy, which is a ranking event - and there was like 30 people sitting there.

"It just made you think, why can we not have the German Open? The world association is stupid really. I mean, they may be running the World Championship, Masters and UK Championship, but some of the other tournaments... it's pathetic. They've just been sitting back and let things slide.

"Like right now: they put on this new tournament in Bahrain when some of the players are contracted to play in the Premier League. This is why we started the new players' union: because they shouldn't have the power to do that and call it a ranking event.

"I can't play in Bahrain because if I do, I will be sued by another company. We should know at the start of the season what the dates are, and if there are clashes, we then at least have the choice of which events we want to play. I never had any choice whatsoever.

"Even at this point, the association is telling us that they might have a tournament in Malta in January. They 'might'. It's November now. People maybe want to go on a holiday or make other plans. But they say we might have a tournament or we might not, but keep that in your diary. That's no way to run a professional sport.

"If you look at other sports like golf or tennis where they have so many more tournaments that fill the calendar, they still know well in advance. Tiger Woods can plot his whole diary at the beginning of the season whereas we can't because we don't know if World Snooker will put on another tournament."

The World Series currently consists of four two-day tournaments: in Jersey, Germany, Russia and Poland, taking place in the off-season of the main tour between May and August. There is also a final competition in Russia, for the most successful four players.

Higgins, who won his second World Championship in 2007, is also the driving force behind players trade union the Association of Snooker Professionals.

Asked whether he has aspirations of a breakaway tour to rival that of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, he replied: "No - it's there to tell them they can't run the sport willy nilly, they've got to run it more professionally now. And it affects the World Series too.

"Next year we've got to run it more professionally, and we can't move the tournaments around to different dates. We will have to be under the same guidelines as World Snooker."

As well as Higgins and his management team, Eurosport and referee Michaela Tabb have been involved in the World Series.

Higgins, who believes the series will go from strength to strength, said that they may adjust the rules to cater to the wildcard players which make up half of the eight-man field in each event.

He continued: "There are more countries now: they couldn't go to Eastern Europe or China in the eighties. With Eurosport showing the events it's also great publicity for the sport. I think the future looks great.

"We've spoken about trying some things out in the World Series. It's hard for the local players to get to the top. We were thinking if the format stays at eight players, in the quarter-finals we'd use six reds, semi-finals 10 reds and in the final it would be 15 reds.

"That would give the lower-ranking players more chance to beat the top players over six or 10 reds. What we're unsure of is what the fans would think about it: it's difficult because it's a new sport coming into the countries, and you don't want to tamper with the sport and the game because that's what people know and love.

"It's difficult. It's a fine balance as we don't want to alienate the people that love the game with 15 reds."

'Wizard of Wishaw' Higgins laid out his vision for the future.

"In the early 80s Steve Davis went with his manager to China, Taiwan and Hong Kong and nobody really knew much about snooker in these countries. And you can see now, 25 years later, that it's expanding really well over there.

"That is how I would like to think it could be now when we come to places like Denmark, Poland and Russia. I'm thinking longer term, in 10-15 years.

"It would be fantastic if I came back here in 20 years' time and some little boy who watched the game now is one of the best players in the world."

Billy Rimgard in Denmark / Eurosport