By Jeremy Wilson
“It’s the Wild East,” Declan Hill, an expert on match-fixing in sport, says. “Corruption is so rife in Chinese sports that it is almost impossible to exaggerate.”
Hill is an associate professor of investigations at the University of New Haven who, from more than 5500km away, has been taking an unexpected interest in events at London’s Alexandra Palace this past week.
While there is big money at the top end of professional snooker, more than half of the players on the top tour made no more than $35,000 last year.Credit:Brendan McCarthy
And while Hill says that “snooker should be congratulated for grasping the nettle” by investigating match-fixing, there is also a stark warning about the challenge.
Snooker, says Hill, shares just about every characteristic of those sports that have become targeted in what he calls a “tsunami of match-fixing” in Asia. It is individual, meaning that a match could be manipulated by only one person. There is a high degree of difficulty, meaning that a skilled player can easily make subtle mistakes that invite little suspicion. It is a sport that has grown rapidly in Asia, a part of the world that, as well as the unregulated and illegal markets, is estimated by Hill to account for around two thirds of the world’s sports gambling market.
And there is a prize structure at the top that, in making millionaires of its best-known players, leaves considerable potential for financial desperation among others.
You do not have to agree with every word Ronnie O’Sullivan has uttered on the subject but, by highlighting the reality of players “struggling to make ends meet”, he surely offered a deeper insight into the threat than some of the more predictable reactions.
World No.1 and seven-time world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan has spoken out on the challenges faced by professional snooker players.Credit:Getty
There are 130 players on the main tour and fewer than half earned prize money of more than £40,000 ($70,000) last season. Around 40 did not earn more than half that. Snooker’s governing bodies have introduced a minimum £20,000 guarantee but, when you factor in travel and accommodation costs, one of Hill’s warnings does feel relevant.
In also citing tennis, he says that a salary system where amoral players think that they can make as much, if not more, by losing as winning is a recipe “for corruptions and a danger of corruption”.
Jason Ferguson, chairman of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, has suspended 10 Chinese players while the investigation is ongoing, including 2021 UK Championship winner Zhao Xintong and former Masters champion Yan Bingtao.
They collectively earned more than £500,000 last season and were due to play in the Masters this week, but of the other eight suspended players, three are aged 20 or under and six earned less than £35,000 in prize money last season.
Former Masters champion Zhao Xintong is one of several players suspended amid a match-fixing probe.Credit:PA
The oldest suspended player is Liang Wenbo, 35, who was named in a now-deleted post on Chinese microblogging site Weibo by world No.77 Chang Bingyu. Chang, who has also been suspended, alleged he was called “in a threatening tone” by Liang on the morning of a match. In his own social media post, Liang denied ever being involved in match-fixing. While not commenting on the investigation, Ferguson has spoken against blanket disciplinary sanctions.
“Individual circumstances in anything would have to be taken into account,” he said.
Clive Everton, a leading snooker journalist for more than 50 years, says he was made to feel like “the enemy” by some of the game’s administrators when he tried to investigate match-fixing prior to 2010. “Pre-Jason Ferguson, the impulse of several administrators was to ignore it on the basis that it was bad for the game,” Everton said. Barry Hearn set up the sport’s integrity unit after John Higgins was found guilty of “giving the impression” he would breach betting rules in 2010 and, for people such as Everton, subsequent investigations prove major progress.
Stephen Lee, Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon, Yu Delu, Cao Yupeng and David John have all been found guilty of various match-fixing charges over the past decade.
‘Once you have that doubt over the essential credibility of the sport, it is heading towards the cemetery.’
Sport corruption expert Declan Hill
Ferguson says the unit monitors betting markets globally “every day of the year” and can detect even the most subtle fluctuations triggered by even small bets.
There is also a confidential helpline, education and welfare programmes for players, and work with outside experts such as Sportradar. Snooker’s integrity unit is headed by Nigel Mawer, a former Scotland Yard detective, who is leading this investigation.
“I’m convinced we will flush this out and guarantee to the public, our rights-holders, that this sport is pure,” Ferguson said.
According to Chris Eaton, who works for the International Centre for Sport Security, match-fixing and betting fraud are still growing in global sport.
“Globally roaming criminal ‘organisations’ are behind the majority of fixes,” he says.
Eaton describes those criminal groups as “loose alliances and networks, almost entrepreneurial in a sense” that can be “cruel and ruthless when deemed necessary”.
He expresses reservations about the efficacy of betting monitoring companies, particularly in respect of illegal and unlicensed markets in Asia, and wants pan-governmental action. “A generation ago, international banking was peppered with black banking and anonymous safe havens,” he says. “Today, while there are still scandals, banks cannot trade internationally without conforming to standard international anti-corruption practices.
“Globally, sport betting is where banking then was. Governments, especially the big three – the US, China and India – need to properly legalise and control sport betting.”
Snooker’s crisis comes as the sport is planning to relaunch major tournaments in China following a three-year Covid hiatus. “We will go back and it will be successful again,” Ferguson says. “We have a strong sports authority in China. We will face it together and develop the sport together.”
From world No.11 Shaun Murphy’s advocacy of life bans, to Higgins’s recent admission that Lee would be welcomed back “with open arms” after a 12-year suspension that ends next year, the players offer mixed opinions.
But, after four years studying and trying to infiltrate Asian gangs in football, Hill is emphatic about how high the stakes are.
“Corruption is the cancer for sports performances,” he said. “Once you have that doubt over the essential credibility of the sport, it is heading towards the cemetery.”
Telegraph, London
Sports news, results and expert commentary. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.
