John Higgins 147 today at the Crucible!

skogstokig said:

i tend to believe his side of the story, he was setup believing it was a sponsorship meeting. he had at the time, and since, won so much money and respect that dumping wouldn't make sense. and they didn't find any funny business reviewing his matches.

stephen lee on the other hand, got 12 years suspension. pretty much the career gone there. others are cao yupeng and yu delu, with similar length bans from the tour

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Stephen Lee was treated harshly, not because of the offence, but the evidence was very light and his ban wasn't mitigated despite that (it also applied to all cue sports, he's not allowed to play in 9-Ball or 8-Ball tournaments either, at least not in the UK).

With Higgins, the video made public was (apparently) very heavily edited by the tabloid who set him up (they are renowned for that over here, so its very believable).

His actual ban was for failing to report the approach, not for throwing matches, which is why it was light.

As you say, his (Higgins) version of events does make sense and is believable, he had zero upside in throwing matches, at the time he was at the top of his game and stood to lose far more than he could possibly gain. He also stated (again believable) he thought they were gangsters so he had no choice but to agree and then get out of there as quickly as possible as he feared for repercussions if he didn't.

Personally I believe him but there are plenty of snooker fans that don't and always root for his opponent because of this!

he had zero upside in throwing matches,

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He couldn't have a friend bet $50k on his inferior opponent while getting odds from the bookies, then dump the match?

ideologist said:

Because he didn't do anything, he was put in an awkward sudden "sponsorship" meeting with big guys in the room, so he agreed and split with no compensation. I don't blame him or WS for that one

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You must have not watched the video that was made surreptitiously of his meeting with the conspirators. He was a very willing accomplice. He didn't look awkward in the least when he was talking about how he could hide the ill gotten money. He was an active participant in the discussion.

His flimsy defense that he didn't actually dump any games meant little since the opportunity hadn't come up yet, and the proposed matches were yet to be played in a future tournament.

Seeing how he recovered after the shot at 4.30 and how he got back on track was amazing. Thanks for the video link.

Bob Jewett said:

Here is the end of Ronnie's 1000th century. (Start at 7:28 if the link doesn't take you there automatically.) The crowd is pretty rowdy.

https://youtu.be/V04DCsNKimc?t=448

As Clive Everton mentions there, the high break prize was only 5000 GBP, which is not all that enormous in that context. If you notice Ronnie's last three shots, he came close to scratching (going in-off) twice and finally succeeded on the black. He frequently tries to go in-off on the last black. Usually it doesn't make any difference.

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Ye 5,000 is not that much.

7stud said:

He couldn't have a friend bet $50k on his inferior opponent while getting odds from the bookies, then dump the match?

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Snooker prize money is decent....the top players* (including Higgins) are all multi-millionaires, so no he wouldn't dump a game for a quick 50k (or at least he would be crazy to do that).

However, lower down the rankings there have been plenty of matches thrown, but any suspicions are acted on, so I would imagine a good % gets caught, but its completely possible a few slip through.

*by top players I mean the likes of Ding (who is rumoured to be on a 7 figure sponsorship deal, aside from prize money), O'Sullivan, Higgins etc not the lower end of the top 16, they do okay, but won't have 7 figure bank balances.

jay helfert said:

You must have not watched the video that was made surreptitiously of his meeting with the conspirators. He was a very willing accomplice. He didn't look awkward in the least when he was talking about how he could hide the ill gotten money. He was an active participant in the discussion.

His flimsy defense that he didn't actually dump any games meant little since the opportunity hadn't come up yet, and the proposed matches were yet to be played in a future tournament.

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Plenty of people agree with you on this side of the pond too, personally I believe his story, but we'll never know the truth of course.

However, it is important to note that the full tape was never shown to the public and the other 'evidence' was not made public either.

Its worth reading through this, which explains why they felt he was not guilty of the more serious offence and was only guilty of failing to report the approach:

http://www.sportingintelligence.com...om-mazher-mahmood-told-the-full-story-210901/

I am not sure what “pulling a ronnie allen” is,
But it looked to me that if they could have caught
Higgins they would have. And he has been
World champion so many times i didn’t see
Him needing to deal with those people.


The way i remember the story, stephen lee was under investigation
And he appealed. Not only was his appeal denied, but the decision
Came back with another set of years of a ban as punishment on top
Of the first punishment!

vjmehra said:

Plenty of people agree with you on this side of the pond too, personally I believe his story, but we'll never know the truth of course.]

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Apparently, the tape is doctored, so in my opinion it's almost useless....except for one thing I heard. If Higgins was just agreeing with everything the dangerous criminals were discussing so that he could get out of the meeting unharmed, then why did he volunteer that he had a house in Spain, which maybe could be used to disguise the payments to him? That seems damning. However, without access to all the evidence, I still hesitate to form a definitive opinion. The authorities certainly don't seem reluctant to hand down harsh penalties to other players.

Higgins, Williams and OSullivan are being kept ‘in the hunt’ by the lure of big prize money. Actually, they are not multi millionaires...they are ‘well off’. I doubt if erratic Ronnie is responsible with his money...in contrast Higgins is a cliche frugal Scotsman.

The Saudis backing a 3 million £ ( 500k winner) tournament is too much for them to resist. That never happened because of the pandemic but is still on the horizon. The top 16 players will all be there as they will be excluded from the qualifying rounds.

Geosnooker said:

Higgins, Williams and OSullivan are being kept ‘in the hunt’ by the lure of big prize money. Actually, they are not multi millionaires...they are ‘well off’. I doubt if erratic Ronnie is responsible with his money...in contrast Higgins is a cliche frugal Scotsman.

The Saudis backing a 3 million £ ( 500k winner) tournament is too much for them to resist. That never happened because of the pandemic but is still on the horizon. The top 16 players will all be there as they will be excluded from the qualifying rounds.

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prize money earnings are one thing, but then add sponsorships, exhibitions, and corporate gigs. davis and hendry made good money on the side, i'm sure ronnie is doing ok too

the problems are in the lower ranks (or higher, depending on how you look at it) and sad to say especially among chinese players

Geosnooker said:

Higgins, Williams and OSullivan are being kept ‘in the hunt’ by the lure of big prize money. Actually, they are not multi millionaires...they are ‘well off’. I doubt if erratic Ronnie is responsible with his money...in contrast Higgins is a cliche frugal Scotsman.

The Saudis backing a 3 million £ ( 500k winner) tournament is too much for them to resist. That never happened because of the pandemic but is still on the horizon. The top 16 players will all be there as they will be excluded from the qualifying rounds.

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Not sure how you’re defining multi millionaires...but those three all are for sure (just to check I’m talking about net worth not annual earnings in case that’s what you mean).

There is of course a huge drop off after the top 5 or so though.