John Higgins snooker scandal

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A pretty big NOTW story considering it involves the world #1 so I thought I would create a thread!

How world snooker champion John Higgins plots to betray his fans for cash | News Of The World

(Obviously other less tabloidy news outlets are running with it but the link is to NOTW since it's 'their' story)

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Was chatting about this earlier on the chatbox with a few people. At first as I was watching the video on NOTW I was thinking they could be talking about absolutely anything, there was no context to the video at all and it blatantly looked like a badly edited video created just to give the impression Higgins was talking about missing shots on purpose (well, to be fair it is a really badly edited together video!). But from about 1.5mins in it does start to look pretty damning for Higgins, especially when he starts talking about sums of money and how many frames the money will buy.

Also the fact he doesn't actually deny the video was a spoof on the Guardian interview and the fact the other chap sat with him (Mooney, chairman of the billiards association or something?) actually resigned after the video was released - both of those things make it look quite bleak for Higgins.

But who knows maybe he just doesn't want to say anything until he's lawyered up properly... will be an interesting one to follow.

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I feel sorry for the guys in the final now because all the work they've put in to get to this point in their career of making it to a World Championship final (one for the first time) is now being overtaken by this story.

Obviously the NOTW went to great lengths to achieve the story and feed it to the world in a tasty highlights reel and yes, the reel would not exist if 1) they didn't attend the meeting and 2) didn't say the things they said. But without seeing the whole process and whether Igor was mentioned, the violent villain behind the deal liked to get his way (ie, threats), then you can never really know exactly what was going on and why these things were said.

What's for sure, when other players were looked into for strange patterns of play/betting behaviour, a story going right to the top of the game really looks terrible.

[tommy]

he's unlucky - probably many in every possible sport sell/fix their matches but nobody can't prove it

[PeterGriffin]

i really have no idea if other countries press are like ours but why release this today?

oh, its the world final, lets ruin it for everyone because of the greed of a few.



every major football tournament England fail to qualify for the manager and sometimes the players get ripped apart. every tourny we get to the press build it up as if we will win, then again rip in when we dont.

i am 100% certain that our good old patriotic press have some great stories all lined up about some of our players, but will be waiting till A) eve of our 1st game and/or B) eve of the world cup final if we reach it.

our press love winners, but love beating them to death even more.

[wobbler]

i really have no idea if other countries press are like ours but why release this today?

oh, its the world final, lets ruin it for everyone because of the greed of a few.

It was released today because it (the film) was only recorded last Friday. It wasn't like they were keeping hold of it, I don't blame the media for the release time but it was probably the worse day it could have been released other than the opening day of the World Championship a couple of weeks ago.

If it turns out to be true (and in all fairness it looks like he's banged to rights) then what a total wanker Higgins has turned out to be. Ruined by greed when he already had the world at his feet. Very sad indeed.

[pinkyexcel]

So the NOTW set someone up to create a story (again).

Watching the video it doesn't look good for him really, he doesn't look under particular stress or seem scared, but entrapment is a dirty trick to play IMO, and I wonder how many people would do the same in his position.

[Fella]

In some ways the timing is very fortunate for snooker. The World Champs is the last event of the season & Higgins was already eliminated; this allowed Hearn to immediately suspend Higgins without it actually affecting anything.

If this had happened two weeks ago snooker would have faced a REAL problem! Either ban the current world champion from this year's competition or be forced to let him play & take lots of flak.

[s0095063]

Higgins is a clown for even entering into discussions with anyone about it, especially after the Maguire match fixing scandal/investigation.

As an aside, how do the gangsters manage to get bets on a player to lose at such huge stakes, i'm pretty sure paddy would limit me to about £2.35! Are they using betfair? - that would still be obvious as hell though as it would really screw the market liquidity?

[Stevesharpe]

It does look bad for Higgins but his reaction on the video suggests he's never done this before, otherwise he would already know how to hide the money etc. OR he's a good actor.

If the NOTW really wanted a story they should have waited until Higgins actually went through with it the first time. At the minute all they have is an agreement which was brought about by an entrapment sting. In a crown court trial that would never stand up to scrutiny so why should sportsmen be treated any differently?

Higgins really has no defence in my opinion, if what he claims was true re being scared for his safety, once he was safe why not report it to the police who could then protect his family, or report it to the WSPBA to notify them that there was an attempt to fix matches. Unless new evidence comes to light I'm sure John Higgins had every intention of taking the money, I simply can't understand why? He doesn't seem to be the money motivated type, he's always seemed to be the true snooker gent. When you've career earnings of £5m + endorsements. He's the world number 1 so who knows what his future earnings might be, the reward seems very low for the risk involved