The game stands at a crossroads today as leading players and officials vote on who should run the sport. The outcome will determine how it tackles a grave financial and moral crisis.

Seventy-one leading professionals plus six members of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, the sport's governing body, will vote at a Shropshire hotel today on whether or not a new board should be formed to take over the running of the game and help attract new investment at a time when it is close to bankruptcy.

The campaign to install a new board has torn the game apart with rival camps made up of leading players pitted against each other in the battle for control. The proposal facing the 77 voters at today's emergency general meeting of the association is that five of the current six board members be replaced.

The five are Jim McMahon, Gordon McKay, Jim Chambers, Mark Wildman and Joe Johnson. The proposal by the reformists, who include some of the leading names in the game, is that they be replaced by the former world champions Terry Griffiths, Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry, as well as Ray Edmonds and Jason Ferguson.

The former world No2 Tony Knowles is the sixth board member but, because of a constitutional technicality, he will remain in place whatever the outcome of today's election.

The reformists claim that, unless a new board is installed and the WPBSA made more professional and streamlined in the way it is run, it will fail to attract new investment and the game will be in danger of dying because of an inability to find new sponsors.

Their opponents include other leading players, among them three more world champions Ronnie O'Sullivan, Peter Ebdon and John Parrott. They allege that today's vote is an attempt by the sport's leading agent Ian Doyle, who represents 21 leading players, to take over the sport and that it will suffer because he does not have its best interests at heart.

They also claim that the WPBSA would no longer be a players' organisation if Doyle and his supporters take over and they will be the only ones to benefit from any changes.

Intense lobbying has been taking place in the run-up to today's vote and the reformists allege they are slightly ahead, having secured the support of another 12 players.

The winning target is 39 votes but the existing board plus a number of lower-ranked players are expected to vote against change. Most analysts expect only two or three votes to separate the rival groups.

Doyle said recently: "Golf, tennis, football, almost every other sport has moved forward dramatically, while snooker has stood still. There are people in the WPBSA who simply do not have a great deal of business experience."

The crucial issue of how snooker can regain its popularity and attract sponsorship money is at the heart of the dispute which came to a head when the WPBSA board decided not to finalise a deal for a new financial partner with the finance company Altium, which was willing to invest £2.5m in the game.

The board chose instead to appoint World Snooker Enterprises (WSE) to manage its commercial affairs but it was not willing to provide any new investment.

That decision led to the reformist camp calling today's EGM. If successful, they have promised to reopen negotiations with Altium and plan to divide the WPBSA into three different areas with one branch responsible for promotional work, another to look after rules and regulations and a third to act as a players' trade union.

Their rivals concede that snooker has its problems but argue that the only way to address them is for the WPBSA to work with the players to improve its fortunes.

The WPBSA refused to comment on today's election but a source said: "This is all about Doyle trying to take over the running of the game and we cannot allow that to happen. We have to address our problems but the answer is not to give over control of snooker to one man."