Three-Cushion World Cup

The Three-Cushion World Cup is an international tournament series in three-cushion billiards, which is held every year since 1986 between three and ten times a year.

The World Cup was founded in 1985 by German Werner Bayer, a carom billiards enthusiast and patron. He called the association "Billiards World Cup Association" (BWA ) and in 1986 the first tournament was held in Paris. As a patron he had excellent contact to sponsors, and quickly the tournament grew into a popular meeting place for players and spectators. At the time, the World-Cup had one of the highest monetary prizes. Between 1986 and 1989, the prize money per tournament was approximately 100,000 DM, with the winner receiving 50,000 DM. The BWA organized the World-Cup along with the world governing body, the Union Mondiale de Billard (UMB).

Between 1988 and 1992, the UMB no longer hosted any world championships themselves, therefore, for four years, the BWA World-Cup became the default world championship. In 1994 there were disagreements between the two associations. The UMB thus blocked players (including players' wives!), referees and organizers who took part in the World Cup, from participating in the tournaments of the UMB and CEB (Confédération Européenne de Billard). Thus, between 1994 and 1997, there were two parallel World-Cup championships. The BWA, as usual, played for 3rd place (the only exception was the tournament 1997/7 ), whereas the UMB did not, and therefore had two 3rd-place finishers. (With few exceptions, since the acquisition of the tournament in 1999, this is the rule up to now) .

After settling the disputes, the UMB and the BWA led the tournament together until early 1999 (Berlin Cup). After 1999, Mr. Bayer withdrew from the BWA for health reasons, and the UMB took over the organization of the tournament series from then on and the BWA broke up due to succession problems.

From 1994, the UMB tournaments were organized in collaboration with the European member association “Confédération Européenne de Billard” (CEB). Since 2004, the World-Cup has been organized as UMB/CEB (in Europe), UMB/CPB (in America), UMB/(in Amerika), UMB/ACBC World-Cup (in Asia), and since 2014, as UMB/ACC in Africa. The prize money amounts to approximately 35,000 € per tournament.

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