John Higgins match fixing claims

oneillMan999

Personally, what i think is sad is the fact that we have 15 pages of comments on this while during the year most of you who have left comments are nowhere to be seen when it comes to discussing SNOOKER!

Obviously its an important subject, but c`mon guys, does it really take a scandal to get u out of ur shells?

Silvio.Dante

oneillMan999 wrote: »

Personally, what i think is sad is the fact that we have 15 pages of comments on this while during the year most of you who have left comments are nowhere to be seen when it comes to discussing SNOOKER!

Obviously its an important subject, but c`mon guys, does it really take a scandal to get u out of ur shells?

The frequency of a member's posts on this board takes nothing away from the legitimacy of their comments. I don't have to prove to anyone my feelings for the game. One's love for snooker does not automatically correspond to the number of one's posts.

mark renton

oneillMan999 wrote: »

Obviously its an important subject, but c`mon guys, does it really take a scandal to get u out of ur shells?

err Yes - also I will add, it was only 4 frames over a year @ 300k, thats 75k a frame

utter stupidity - he should have opened up a Betfair account

therokerroar

therokerroar

gd1987 wrote: »

Ive read through most of the posts and I can't beleive the majority are willing to beleive the news of the world about snooker players. Has any poster ever read that paper before, its 98% rumours and half truths ffs. Don't be so negative!

I'll be surprised if this story is like the tabloids say.

The News of the World have not just took a lucky guess and got lucky by picking Higgins.

Obviously these rumours have been going about and the News of the World has moved in for the kill knowing fine well Higgins was fair game for it all.

Ayrtonf7

therokerroar wrote: »

Loving that picture...

x in the city

higging musnt be the brightest spark

onlyrocknroll

This is obviously very disappointing to any snooker fan. I know I'm being too optimistic here but does anybody else think that Higgins' excuse might just be true.

He's in a foreign country and is approached by strangers suggesting that he should do something illegal. It's not entirely implausible that he felt intimidated and just went along with it. I know he doesn't look too uncomfortable in the video but he could have just been acting. The way he seems to be over compensating and acting overly natural looks like he's actually nervous to me.

The still image of him smiling is obviously taken out of context, that could be from before the offer was made or at any other time in the conversation. The part where he jokes about the interviewer being a journalist is very obviously taken out of context (at least on the cut of the video I saw) and could have meant absolutely anything when he said. Do you trust the journalistic ethics of rag tabloids? (I don't think that the 'sting' was wrong though, seems far game to me.)

Now I don't really 100% believe the above, it was pretty incriminating. But still I think that there is a little hope of him clearing his name.

Healio

azzeretti wrote: »

You might want to qualify this.

Probably put that the wrong way. He has been involved in matches that were suspect.

only links i could find:

http://snookerscene.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html

6.12.06
BOOKIES CRY FOUL AS PERRY BEATS JUDGE
Irregular betting patterns were reported by two Irish bookmakers in the Joe Perry v Michael Judge match at the Maplin UK Championship.

According to the Racing Post, Celtic Bookmakers and Paddy Power contacted the WPBSA after what they regarded as suspiciously high amounts were placed on Perry to win 9-0 or 9-1.

blinding

therokerroar wrote: »

Those two handle "genuinely in fear of our lives" better than most ! ! !

If they were'nt so stupid they could make a couple of Bond Villains.

M cebee

he said he's facing the toughest match of his life:D

wonder how long it took him to think of that?

a148pro

onlyrocknroll wrote: »

This is obviously very disappointing to any snooker fan. I know I'm being too optimistic here but does anybody else think that Higgins' excuse might just be true.

He's in a foreign country and is approached by strangers suggesting that he should do something illegal. It's not entirely implausible that he felt intimidated and just went along with it. I know he doesn't look too uncomfortable in the video but he could have just been acting. The way he seems to be over compensating and acting overly natural looks like he's actually nervous to me.

The still image of him smiling is obviously taken out of context, that could be from before the offer was made or at any other time in the conversation. The part where he jokes about the interviewer being a journalist is very obviously taken out of context (at least on the cut of the video I saw) and could have meant absolutely anything when he said. Do you trust the journalistic ethics of rag tabloids? (I don't think that the 'sting' was wrong though, seems far game to me.)

Now I don't really 100% believe the above, it was pretty incriminating. But still I think that there is a little hope of him clearing his name.

I agree to an extent, though I still think he's more than likely crossed the line of unacceptable behaviour. From my reading of the situtation it seems he was lured out to Kiev by an offer of sponsorship. In the context of trying to please his sponsors and in the context of finding himself in a hotel room with some Russian scamsters if the few editted lines in the NOTW footage is the best they have on him, then maybe his story is slightly plausible. In a 30% kind of way.

But when you take into account the background efforts by the NOTW (i.e. getting Mooney to confirm in the UK that he could get Higgins to throw frames) and the likely fact that they targetted him after hearing rumours then it becomes < 5 - 10 % plausible

Silvio.Dante

Funny how these scary Russian/Ukrainian mobsters had Neutral English accents.

a148pro

there is a russian in the room too

Armin_Tamzarian

onlyrocknroll wrote: »

This is obviously very disappointing to any snooker fan. I know I'm being too optimistic here but does anybody else think that Higgins' excuse might just be true.

He's in a foreign country and is approached by strangers suggesting that he should do something illegal. It's not entirely implausible that he felt intimidated and just went along with it. I know he doesn't look too uncomfortable in the video but he could have just been acting. The way he seems to be over compensating and acting overly natural looks like he's actually nervous to me.

The still image of him smiling is obviously taken out of context, that could be from before the offer was made or at any other time in the conversation. The part where he jokes about the interviewer being a journalist is very obviously taken out of context (at least on the cut of the video I saw) and could have meant absolutely anything when he said. Do you trust the journalistic ethics of rag tabloids? (I don't think that the 'sting' was wrong though, seems far game to me.)

Now I don't really 100% believe the above, it was pretty incriminating. But still I think that there is a little hope of him clearing his name.

That's just it, as bad as it looks there's always the possibility that he's telling the truth.
As ridiculous as it sounds the only thing that I can think of that could make Higgins believable is if he agreed to a lie detector test (and passed).

Slideshowbob

Smells like entrapment - everyone has their price.

Think about your own job and at what price you would take a bung!

I can see to possible outcomes:

1. He gets banned and fined

or

2. He sues NOTW for defamation

Did they get a sniff of genuine allegations? Is that why they set him up for a sting? Why didn't they just come forward with such details?

blinding

Have some people on here not seen the video.

If he can talk his way out of some thing as conclusive as that then he must be some con man.

How will he ever have credability again unless he never miss's another shot.

onlyrocknroll

Entrapment is when some body of the law encourages you to commit a crime and then attempts to prosecute you far it. (Unless I'm mistaken.) Nobody's prosecuting Higgins here, TNOTW simply printed the story.

Dozen Wicked Words

Armin_Tamzarian wrote: »

That's just it, as bad as it looks there's always the possibility that he's telling the truth.
As ridiculous as it sounds the only thing that I can think of that could make Higgins believable is if he agreed to a lie detector test (and passed).

I think Higgins knew exactly what he was doing, and not sure its that believable when his manager had ?4 meetings prior to introducing Higgins himself. Higgins best bet, whether the accusations are true or not, is to pay off his manager to take the fall, a few hundred grand and the manager can say it was all his idea and Higgins was there under duress.

Hulk Hands

onlyrocknroll wrote: »

This is obviously very disappointing to any snooker fan. I know I'm being too optimistic here but does anybody else think that Higgins' excuse might just be true.

He's in a foreign country and is approached by strangers suggesting that he should do something illegal. It's not entirely implausible that he felt intimidated and just went along with it. I know he doesn't look too uncomfortable in the video but he could have just been acting. The way he seems to be over compensating and acting overly natural looks like he's actually nervous to me.

The still image of him smiling is obviously taken out of context, that could be from before the offer was made or at any other time in the conversation. The part where he jokes about the interviewer being a journalist is very obviously taken out of context (at least on the cut of the video I saw) and could have meant absolutely anything when he said. Do you trust the journalistic ethics of rag tabloids? (I don't think that the 'sting' was wrong though, seems far game to me.)

Now I don't really 100% believe the above, it was pretty incriminating. But still I think that there is a little hope of him clearing his name.

But if that is the case then why didn't Higgins/Manager phone Barry Hearn or the snooker authorities straight away once they got out of the Ukraine. That would have been the first action of any innocent player. Remember that these journalists were posing as event organisers and sponsers.

There is no way out of it. He's caught. And it makes you think that it may be widespread in snooker. Jamie Burnett and Stephen Maguire are guilty until proven innocent in my eyes. There has also been a lot of rumours about a popular Londoner from the 90's

onlyrocknroll

Hulk Hands wrote: »

But if that is the case then why didn't Higgins/Manager phone Barry Hearn or the snooker authorities straight away once they got out of the Ukraine. That would have been the first action of any innocent player. Remember that these journalists were posing as event organisers and sponsers.

That's certainly something that doesn't look good for him, but it's not quite hard evidence. People often become aware of illegal activity and fail to act as whistleblowers, for any number of reasons.

Quite honestly of course I believe that he's probably guilty. Because of the evidence the onus is on him to disprove the allegations. But still, given his semi-plausible excuse I think that we should all reserve judgement a little longer.

Exclamation Marc

If Higgins and Mooney were so scared of their lives, they wouldn't not throw the match without protecting themselves.

If these gangsters were so scary and intimidating, surely Higgins and Mooney would be terrified of not throwing the match as they agreed and would take precautions that when they didn't throw the match, they had some form of insurance; as someone else said tell Barry Hearn or the police straight away. They wouldn't just agree, take the money, not do it, and expect not to be in bigger danger than if they originally said no from these "scary Russian gangsters".

If they were so scared, they would have done something about, not just hoped it would blow away.

Gang of Gin

Penisland wrote: »

His casual nature makes it hard to believe that it is a once off!

For the "investors" to make money from this deal there would have had to been some very unusual betting, that would have been picked up by bookmakers (since it was just one frame in four different matches)

How did he think he would get away with it!

This is true. It's easy, I'm sure, to disguise throwing isolated frames with large money riding on a particular frame per se, so what's not to say that this isn't widespread in the game. It's very difficult to notice within an entire match.

onlyrocknroll

FireballPitcher wrote: »

If Higgins and Mooney were so scared of their lives, they wouldn't not throw the match without protecting themselves.

If these gangsters were so scary and intimidating, surely Higgins and Mooney would be terrified of not throwing the match as they agreed and would take precautions that when they didn't throw the match, they had some form of insurance; as someone else said tell Barry Hearn or the police straight away. They wouldn't just agree, take the money, not do it, and expect not to be in bigger danger than if they originally said no from these "scary Russian gangsters".

If they were so scared, they would have done something about, not just hoped it would blow away.

Well firstly they didn't take any money as I understand it they just agreed to take it when the request to throw a frame was made.


Secondly the video was shot on Friday and the story broke on Sunday perhaps he would have reported it given more time.

Again, I'm just playing devil's advocatate (or maybe bleeding hearted ejjit's advoacate) here but I think that his actions are at least consistant with his story, he agrees to the take the bribe out of fear, goes home (not sure which day) and considers what to do/hopes it all goes away, then the story breaks.

Unlikely? Yes. Impossible? No.

DubGF

I found this whole story hard to believe when I seen it break on Saturday night, the guy who reported it via twitter has posted this article.

http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2010/05/03/revealed-the-tal-behind-the-snooker-sting-that-leaves-higgins-in-the-fight-of-his-life-030501/

Just read it and it all seems very strange to say the least.

I hope Higgins comes out of this with his reputation in order, I always regarded him as a top player

aDeener

DubGF wrote: »

I found this whole story hard to believe when I seen it break on Saturday night, the guy who reported it via twitter has posted this article.

http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2010/05/03/revealed-the-tal-behind-the-snooker-sting-that-leaves-higgins-in-the-fight-of-his-life-030501/

Just read it and it all seems very strange to say the least.

I hope Higgins comes out of this with his reputation in order, I always regarded him as a top player

it just goes to show that there is always more to stories than what meets the eye.

im really hoping john acted in good faith, theres 1% of me saying he did and i hope its right

iUseVi

Haven't read the whole thread so apologies if this is a re-hash. But if it's true that Higgins was just going along with them because he thought they were dodgy, then yes, he should have reported it, but is he still guilty if he truly wasn't going to go along with it?

He might truly have been bluffing to the Ukrainians is what I'm saying, how would a board of review prove/disprove that? AFAIK thinking about committing a crime is not a crime, although I suppose the snooker association has their own rules.

Armin_Tamzarian

Maybe he was framed.

/sorry

aDeener

Armin_Tamzarian wrote: »

Maybe he was framed.

/sorry

He was planted into the situation by his manager...

Frank Spencer

Found this on the net.

I reckon Higgins has been framed. It's a pity that NOTW were trying to screw him over, what with the planted camera and everything. Since the video is edited, we can't be sure if he initially baulked at the suggestion, but decided to play along for fear of his safety. We also can't be sure that he would follow through with the claims, and in the end he didn't pocket any money, but he should at least have given Barry Hearn the tip. You can chalk that up to stupidity on his part. However, until I hear every side of the story, I'm willing to give poor Higgins a break.