Nigel Mawer believes Joe Jogia was found breaching WPBSA rules – Snooker Update
Snooker governing body, World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) completed its investigation on the suspicious betting patterns before the 2012 Snooker Shootout match between the World Number 47 Joe Jogia and Matthew Selt at Blackpool
arena.
After the finish of the hearing proceedings, the WPBSA disciplinary committee banned Jogia until the end of the 2014 World Snooker Championship.
The committee also fined him £2,000 as the charges of hearing. Jogia did not accept this decision and called the WPBSA racist and biased. He believes that he has been made a scapegoat to save big names of the game. Jogia had the stance that he did not appear
in the game so he should not be banned. He was quite furious over WPBSA decision and reckoned that the decision has ruined his career.
Meanwhile, during the hearing, the investigation team presented the evidence of contact between two bettors and the player himself through calls and text messages. The Chairman of the WPBSA Disciplinary Committee Nigel Mawer commented that the investigation
was conducted without any biasness and the team grabbed all the possible evidence on the case which proved that Jogia breached the WPBSA set of rules regarding corruption.
While speaking to the local media, Mawer said, “We look very seriously at any claims of corruption. We want a clean sport and take all possible steps to do that. I would be keen to hear from anyone who believes there are corrupt practices going on but we
do not believe this is widespread and strongly refute what Joe has said.”
He added, “Of course, we can understand how upset Joe is at the outcome but the fact remains we conducted a very thorough investigation, as we always do, and he was found to have breached the rules.”
Jogia, on the other hand, has decided not to appeal against the decision because he cannot afford the expenses. Jogia will not be able to appear in any international snooker tournament until the finish of the 2013-14 Snooker Season.
It looks like the WPBSA has taken decisive and serious action against Jogia. The hope is that if any corrupt practices are going on or might happen in the future, the WPBSA’s action will definitely discourage any player from getting into this type of scandal.
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