Disciplinary matter

The day before yesterday WPBSA/WST had announced that five players, all Chinese, all practising at Ding’s academy had been suspended as allegations of “misconduct” were investigated. The wording of the announcement strongly suggested that the whole affair was somehow linked to the Liang Wenbo investigation and that it was about match fixing.

Yesterday, one of the suspended players, Chang Bingyu decided to speak out and posted some details on weibo. His posts have since been deleted but not before some of it was captured, translated and shared on twitter.

This is far worse than everything we imagined. Liang’s family is extremely wealthy. They likely have “connections” with powerful people, the very rich usually do. I believe Chang when he says he was scared and he’s been extremely courageous to speak out although doing it may actually interfere with the investigation. If this is proven to be true, there is only one possible outcome for Liang: a life ban.

From what I understood, he could also face a trial in China, but he’s not currently in China and if he doesn’t return, he might well escape that.

I wrote above that this is worse than we expected, however, in a way, it’s reassuring to know that match fixing is not always done for personal profit and greed. In this case the culprit acted out of fear. This is something I suspected for a long time, but I never thought that the “blackmailer” could be a player themself. I was more thinking about outsiders linked to the betting ecosystem.

But it is only reassuring “in a way” because it’s actually scary and very worrying to discover that a player, a former ranking event winner, inside the game was actively constraining other players to fix matches by threatening them.

I actually watched that match Chang lost in the British Open qualifiers and I could see that Chang wasn’t himself and looked very unhappy but I never imagined that something so bad was happening. I was just supposing that Chang had a bad day in office, maybe had a migraine or something. It happens to all of us.

This was published today

WPBSA Statement – Ronnie O’Sullivan

WPBSA Statement 26^th October 2022

The WPBSA and Ronnie O’Sullivan Disciplinary Hearing Finding

After a WPBSA Disciplinary Committee hearing before an independent tribunal on 16^th September 2022, Ronnie O’Sullivan was found to have breached the WPBSA Conduct Regulations and his players contract:

The allegation was that the Player had made a lewd and offensive gesture on two separate occasions in televised matches at the UK Championship 2021 and World Championship 2022.

At the hearing Mr O’Sullivan denied the allegations.

On 24^th October 2022, the sanction imposed on Mr O’Sullivan was:

To pay a fine of £2,000; and

To pay the costs of the Hearing fixed at £2,000

Mr O’Sullivan has the right to appeal the decisions of the Disciplinary Committee.

The WPBSA Members Rules

1.1   Members shall, at all times (i.e. whether at a Tournament or not), behave in a proper and correct manner consistent with their status as professional sportsmen.

1.3 A Member shall not make or cause to be made any statement or commit or cause to be committed any act which in the reasonable view of the WPBSA is likely to bring into disrepute the games of snooker and/or billiards.

WSL Players Contract

3.1.5    Behave in a professional and reputable manner befitting a professional sportsperson.

3.1.6    Not to do anything that may damage the reputation and goodwill of the Snooker Parties and the Partners

I will say only this:

I have no recollection of an incident at the 2021 UK Championship.
The 2022 World Championship incident is probably the gesture that triggered the argument with Olivier Marteel during the final. I’m a bit surprised because, at the time, during the next session, it was said in commentary that the television images had shown nothing conclusive.
This is probably not going to improve Ronnie’s mood and motivation for the coming events.
As a personal and highly controversial opinion, I do not believe that whatever a sportsperson does or says, it actually impacts their sport. It only impacts their personal image … and then only “maybe”. If Alex Higgins didn’t destroy snooker – being dishonest, violent, obnoxious, a spoilt brat, a drunk and a women beater – nobody and nothing will. I know that he put snooker in the spotlight – partly because of his unacceptable behaviour actually – and that he was a fantastic player, but, from what I read – and that includes two oh his biographies – he was a truly horrible human being and nobody seems to care…