John Higgins Bribery Scandal

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Snooker world number one John Higgins has reportedly agreed to take a £261,000 bribe to lose frames in four separate matches later this year.

The News of the World says it has video of Higgins and his manager Pat Mooney making a deal in Ukraine on Friday.

Mr Mooney is quoted as saying they feared for their safety at the time. There is no suggestion Higgins has ever thrown a frame or fixed a match.

World Snooker chairman Barry Hearn said an investigation had been launched.

'Massive blow'

He told BBC Radio 5 live he would decide whether to suspend the player within the next 24 hours.

He said he was "absolutely mortified" and the story had come as a "huge shock".


It's really been a shattering experience at this moment in time
Barry Hearn
World Snooker chairman

Mr Mooney is reported to have told the News of the World: "You have no idea what the circumstances were in Kiev, that's why I have no comment.

"But we were genuinely in fear for our safety."

The paper says three-time world champion Higgins refused to comment. Neither Higgins nor Mr Mooney has commented since the publication of the story.

It alleges the sports star inquired at the meeting about the best ways to conceal the 300,000 euros ($398,000) to be received.

In a published transcript, Higgins, 34, from Wishaw, North Lanarkshire, says it would be easy to affect the outcome of a frame so syndicates could place bets.

Many bookmakers now offer the option of betting on individual frames.

Expansion plans

Mr Mooney is a board member of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), whose commercial arm is World Snooker.

Mr Hearn, a promoter, recently proposed an overhaul of the sport including rule changes and boxing-style introductions for the players.

He told the BBC: "I'm absolutely mortified by it [the story]. I've known John Higgins for a long long time.

"Pat Mooney is a co-director of the WPBSA, the governing body of snooker and it's comes as just a huge shock and obviously an enormous blow to the integrity of the sport which is vital as everyone knows for the expansion plans we have.

"So it's really been a shattering experience at this moment in time and one that will be obviously immediately looked into by our disciplinary people under the WPBSA rules."

He said the newspaper allegations had forced him to consider his plans for the sport.

"I want to meet with the players anyway on Wednesday anyway to discuss it. And this is now top of the agenda," he said.

The World Snooker Championship final begins in Sheffield later.

Higgins, who was made an MBE in 2008 and is married with three children, is the current world champion and provisional world number one and has won a total of 21 ranking titles.

He was unexpectedly knocked out of the current tournament in the second round by veteran Steve Davis.
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BBC News - Snooker champion John Higgins in 'bribe' allegation

His manager's now going with the 'It was all a ruse, our lives were in danger' routine.

None of which explains why a giddy John Higgins suggested, without prompting, that it would be difficult to 'swallow' the money, and perhaps they should pay off his house in Spain with it.

Looking at a snooker forum, there are people suggesting his ban is likely to be about two years minimum, and that Hearn may make sure it's much longer so his plans to jazz up the snooker, like he did the darts, don't go awry.
 
It's hard to believe that people like him and Keiran Fallon, massively well-paid for doing things they like doing are so fecking greedy they have to corrupt their sports.
 
Someone just pointed out to me that Quinten Hann got an eight year ban not so long ago. So it looks like John might be done with snooker for a long time.

Aye, pete, it's amazing really. You just have to hope that it isn't indicative of a deeper malaise in the sport.
 
peterstorey said:
It's hard to believe that people like him and Keiran Fallon, massively well-paid for doing things they like doing are so fecking greedy they have to corrupt their sports.
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In fairness to him, it's a short career. So if you get offered £300,000 to pop 4 frames over a season, you'll do it.
 
WireRed said:
In fairness to him, it's a short career. So if you get offered £300,000 to pop 4 frames over a season, you'll do it.
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That's the thing it wasn't even to lose a match just individual frames which must make it much more tempting.

Still disgraceful behaviour from one of the greats of snooker, really quite shocking.
 
Absolutely disgraceful, I always thought Higgins was one of the good guys on tour and a real role model for the sport

He's about the last player I would have suspected of doing something like this
 
WireRed said:
In fairness to him, it's a short career. So if you get offered £300,000 to pop 4 frames over a season, you'll do it.
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No. Why assume everyone is so corrupt?

I've never really taken to Higgins, but I am shocked by this. I hope something comes out to prove its all a huge mistake, but I think I'm being naive
 
He was even there with a director of the Snooker association for fecks sake! Just how corrupt is snooker? Higgins should be banned for life.
 
B Cantona said:
No. Why assume everyone is so corrupt?

I've never really taken to Higgins, but I am shocked by this. I hope something comes out to prove its all a huge mistake, but I think I'm being naive
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You'd have to be a paragon of honesty and integrity to not be at least tempted by such a proposition.

There's no losing matches involved, just 4 frames over a 1 year period. You'd have to be a saint not to get your head turned.

What he's done is wrong and bad for the game but I can see why he would be tempted by such an offer. He's got a family to provide for so a £300,000 fee for "losing" a few frames might seem worth it to him.
 
WireRed said:
You'd have to be a paragon of honesty and integrity to not be at least tempted by such a proposition.

There's no losing matches involved, just 4 frames over a 1 year period. You'd have to be a saint not to get your head turned.

What he's done is wrong and bad for the game but I can see why he would be tempted by such an offer. He's got a family to provide for so a £300,000 fee for "losing" a few frames might seem worth it to him.
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You'd just have to have some integrity I think

And it's not a question of temptation. You said anyone WOULD do it. And that's clearly nonsense. If you'd definitely do it, don't assume everyone else is as morally corrupt
 
B Cantona said:
You'd just have to have some integrity I think

And it's not a question of temptation. You said anyone WOULD do it. And that's clearly nonsense. If you'd definitely do it, don't assume everyone else is as morally corrupt
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OK, maybe the "anybody would" comment was wrong but IMO a lot of folk would take the bribe, me being one of those corrupt sods :devil:

The reward by far outweighs the crime to just turn your nose up at it, but that's just my opinion.
 
Can't believe it... he's the last guy you'd expect! He should be up there with the all time greats and he's possibly thrown it all away...
 
Just watching the video on the NOTW site again. In his just-released statement, Higgins says he 'went along' with the converstation because he felt 'intimidated', and that he's never missed a ball on purpose or thrown a match.

Well, he certainly doesn't look intimidated in the video and he's sounds suspiciously experienced in these matters.

It will be interesting to see if he can get out of this - judging from the film it's not likely...
 
After watching the vid, I'd say he's fecked.
 
I reckon there are a lot of the players up to similar tricks. There has been plenty of "irregular betting patterns " over the last few years.
 
"My conscience is 100% clear. In my 18 years playing professional snooker I have never deliberately missed a shot, never mind intentionally lost a frame or a match."

Truly sad if this will be how we remember Higgins, a great player on his day but to get mixed up with stuff like this is idiotic
 
So the current position seems to be that Higgins and Mooney are claiming that they were brought to Kiev on the premise of organising a tournament of some sort. Once there, they claim they were ambushed with talk of 'frame fixing' which they went along with out of fear.

The NOTW, on the other hand, says that there had been a few meetings with Mooney prior to the Kiev meeting, at which 'frame fixing' was explicitly spoken about, including Mooney's assurances that Higgins was on board with the plan. If true, then Mooney's done. What Higgins knew, if anything, will then be the key. He's in real trouble.

The NOTW are also promising further revelations next week, including, allegedly, the reasons they targeted Higgins in the first place.
 
I really hope these promised 'further revelations' are restricted just to Higgins. These things have a horrible tendency to snowball. If it turns out that this has actually been going on and several players are involved then it will be terrible for snooker, particularly at a time when it looked like the game was on the way up again.
 
BaldwinLegend said:
I really hope these promised 'further revelations' are restricted just to Higgins. These things have a horrible tendency to snowball. If it turns out that this has actually been going on and several players are involved then it will be terrible for snooker, particularly at a time when it looked like the game was on the way up again.
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I hope you're wrong. People are now starting to question whether Higgins threw his match against Steve Davis, considering the odds on Davis winning that game were pretty long. I'd like to think Davis won fair and square for he'd be devastated if it turned out otherwise. That would be downright cruel to have that memorable win chalked off because of crooked play.
 
Probably being dense here as I find watching snooker about as interesting as watching a John Barnes speech on the roller coaster world of philately, but why is snooker a short career? Surely anyone half decent can go on into their 40's-50's?
 
I think later on it's a case of hand/eye coordination going but apparently the first things to go are desire and application making concentration and practice harder... I hink basically guys like Hendry don't give as much of a toss enough any more so can't beat the young guys enough to get through tournaments to the final or stay at the top of the rankings.
 
They asked Parrot and Davis this the other day.

Basically they put it down to two things. The first is concentration. They both felt as you get older it was harder to concentrate for longer periods, particularly over multi-session matches. They also said that the more relaxed you become around the table - which is natural given how long they've been in the game - the more likely you are to let the standards slip.

The second was mental tiredness and recovery times. They both agreed that a tough match now takes it out of them far more than it would have twenty years ago, and you're playing against young blokes who seem as fresh as a daisy. And that leads to making it more difficult to concentrate around the table.
 
In talking about the scandal, Davis looked quite emotional just there. You can see this whole affair has hurt him deeply, as he seems to be a real snooker man. Particularly as his game against Higgins is being looked at in a different light now.

Hearn's been impressive in all of this so far. Very decisive, and determined to root this out.
 
Snooker aside, how many more sportsmen does it take to be caught out by NOTW reporters before they collectively grown a brain cell and keep their noses clean?
 
B Cantona said:
Ask Higgins if he thinks that is the case right now

How much has he won in career money down the years? And now his reputation and livelihood is down the shitter for a few paltry 100k?
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Career earnings of over £5million.
 
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