Breathtaking stupidity
Snooker legend Davis hits out at fixing scandal ripping sport apart
THEY are playing in the Palace this week but snooker is in the gutter. The Masters is meant to be a showcase for the sport’s best. Yet it is the worst of the game that is under the spotlight now.
Only the world’s top 16 players are invited to take part in the Masters, one of snooker’s Triple Crown events, which got underway yesterday. However, two of that select group are missing from the line-up at Alexandra Palace after being embroiled in the biggest match-fixing scandal to rock the sport.
Zhao Xintong, world No 9 and 2021 UK Championship winner, and Yan Bingtao, world No 16 and 2021 Masters champion, are both absent.
They are just two of 10 Chinese stars suspended from the World Snooker Tour as part of the investigation into ‘allegations of manipulating the outcome of matches for betting purposes’, which is due to reach a conclusion soon and could see players hit with lengthy bans.
No wonder snooker legend Steve Davis told the BBC yesterday: ‘If the allegations are proven to be true, it shows a breathtaking level of stupidity by these players. It’s embarrassing.’
The match-fixing probe was launched in October after the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) were alerted to suspicious betting activity.
Liang Wenbo — the 2016 English Open winner — was the first player suspended.
His countrymen Lu Ning, Li Hang, Zhao Jianbo, Bai Langning, Chang Bingyu, Chen Zifan and Zhang Jiankang have also all been temporarily banned.
‘Of course it is very damaging,’ Jason Ferguson, the WPBSA chair, told Sportsmail.
‘But it is not as damaging as leaving it. We are a sport that deals with these things. The public have to know that every match played and every ball potted means something. We will ensure this sport is 100 per cent (clean).’ Zhao should have been facing Mark Selby in the Masters first round last night but, following his suspension last week, he was replaced by Hossein Vafaei.
‘It’s a really sad time for the sport and it’s not putting snooker in a great light,’ admitted threetime Masters champion Selby.
The previous longest ban handed down in snooker was the 12 years Stephen Lee received in 2012 after being found guilty of seven charges of match-fixing.
Asked about possible sanctions, Ferguson added: ‘ They can receive up to a lifetime ban. But if you have a rule that says lifetime for everything, it doesn’t really work. We have to leave that to the independent tribunal that will or will not take place.’
It has been claimed the alleged fixes involve criminal gangs. The exact matches under investigation have not yet been disclosed, but some details have leaked on social media. The suspended Chang posted a now- deleted message on Chinese microblogging site Weibo claiming that another player ordered him to lose a British Open match to Jamie Jones 4-1, which he did.
‘If I didn’t agree, he would make trouble for me, so I had no choice but to agree,’ Chang wrote. ‘I can accept my punishment, but I was really scared at the time. I didn’t receive any money.’
The WPBSA’s probe is being led by Nigel Mawer, a former detective chief superintendent with the Met Police, and draws on data compiled by sports technology company Sportradar.
‘Snooker has one of the most, if not the most, serious and proactive integrity units in sport,’ Tom Mace, director of global operations at Sportradar Integrity Services, told Sportsmail.
‘Our Universal Fraud Detection System is the market-leading bet monitoring system. A report from us is now more or less accepted as reliable evidence that there has been a fixed match.’
Mace does not believe snooker has a bigger match-fixing problem than other sports, just that it is better policed. However, he does state factors that give the sport an ‘elevated risk’ — the widespread betting coverage in the UK, Ireland and the Far East, the fact that most players earn modest amounts and that it is an individual sport.
What is especially damaging for the sport, both financially and reputationally, is the nationality of the players under investigation.
China is the biggest market for snooker and now more than a third of their 24 tour players are suspended. At the same time, no international tournament has been staged in the country since 2019 because of Covid — and events there account for a third of players’ income.
Ferguson said: ‘ We still have every intention to deliver world-class sport to the Chinese fans. This will not hold the sport back. The sport is stronger than the current issue.’
And yet, right now, the sport has never felt weaker.
More than a third of China’s 24 tour players are suspended