Snooker’s governing body introduces corruption hotline for players
Snooker’s governing body, the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association has introduced a hotline so that professional snooker players can report incidents of match fixing.
The players will attend a meeting in Germany where the European Tour Championship is taking place. The meeting will inform players how they can report any suspicious activity or approaches in relation
to match fixing.
The initiative will be introduced after the three times World Champion John Higgins found himself embroiled in a match fixing allegation.
The player was found not guilty of match fixing, but he was suspended for six months and fined £75,000 for failing to report an incident to the WPBSA.
The incident came to light in May, after the
News of the World set up a hoax meeting with Higgins and his manager. Reporters for the newspaper pretended to be representatives of an illegal betting syndicate and offered the former world number one money to throw frames.
Higgins has just made his return to snooker from his suspension and will be keen to put the incident behind him.
Speaking at a press conference the WPSBA disciplinary chief David Douglas said, "It is a hotline and email service for the players that is anonymous or otherwise."
"The players can use it to report suspicious activities or to inquire about information about the rules and regulations,” added Douglas.
The disciplinary chief believes that the new measures will help tackle corruption within the sport and encourage players not to get involved in illegal dealings.
"It is a case of the WPBSA being pro-active and making sure we are not arrogant to think that corruption is not a part, or could not be a part, of the sport," said Douglas.
The WPSBA integrity unit will also monitor and pool information into a data base which they will share with legal betting organisations. The snooker governing body hopes that this will allow the betting
industry and the WPSBA to notice any unusual betting practices.
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