Ten snooker players in China have already been banned, why is match-fixing so rampant in this sport?
Text | Ma Lianhong
On January 3, just as the first battle of the new year in 2023 began, snooker exposed heavy penalties again: the WPBSA World Taiwan Federation issued a statement saying that Jason Ferguson, president of the World Taiwan Federation, has decided to suspend Zhao Xintong and Zhang Health from participating in the World Snooker Tour, and this decision takes effect immediately. Together with Liang Wenbo, Lu Ning, Li Xing, Zhao Jianbo, Bai Langning, Chang Bingyu, Yan Bingtao and Chen Zifan, who were previously banned from the competition, 10 players have been banned.
According to the data, a total of 27 Chinese snooker players participated in the 2022/2023 season, which means that one-third of them are involved in match-fixing, and so many players have been banned at the same time, which is the first time in snooker history.
10 snooker players banned for 1 month
In 2018, Yu Delu and Cao Yupeng were banned by the World Taiwan Federation for 10 years and 9 months and 6 years respectively for gambling and manipulating the game. Since then, the Taiwan Association has added a domestic ban for Germany. This is also the first top-grid fine issued by the Taiwan Association in history.
In contrast, the scale of players involved in this round of bans is larger. The current round of bans began in late October 2022, on October 27, the World Professional Snooker Association announced that Liang Wenbo was banned from attending or participating in the World Snooker Tour, and then in December, Lu Ning, Li Xing, Zhao Jianbo, Bai Langning, Chang Bingyu, Yan Bingtao, Chen Zifan and other 7 people were banned for allegedly manipulating the game.
Just when everyone thought that this round of banning was about to pass, on the day of the start of the first tournament in 2023, the Champions League (Invitational Version) Group 3 match, the World Taiwan Federation issued another ticket: suspended Zhao Xintong and Zhang Jianjian from participating in the World Snooker Tour, and this decision took effect immediately.
In just one month, 10 snooker players have been punished, of which 2 are rookies with great momentum, Zhao Xintong and Yan Bingtao are ranked 9th and 16th in the world respectively, the former is the 2021 British Championship champion, the latter is the 2021 Masters champion, are the two most powerful young players after Ding Junhui, Zhao Xintong, Yan Bingtao and Ding Junhui are also the only 3 ace players in China.
At present, the World Taiwan Federation may not impose additional bans on these players. Jason Ferguson, president of the World Taiwan Federation, said in an interview with foreign media: "The gambling investigation against 8 players is about to end", and in response to the previous speculation, based on the serious situation of the group gambling incident, Ferguson said that the World Taiwan Federation will not give the above 8 players a serious punishment of "life ban", "It is difficult to ban players for life, because they are not habitual offenders, and individual young players are also making mistakes for the first time, or should they act in accordance with the established rules." ”
Why is snooker so full of match-fixing
At present, World Snooker covers 26 top tournaments around the world, with 128 professional players and 90 registered member states; With more than 500 million viewers worldwide, a total annual prize fund of $14 million, and 8,000 hours broadcast annually worldwide.
This influential sport has always had the phenomenon of "match-fixing", "match-fixing" and "gambling", and although the World Taiwan Federation has continuously increased its control over players in recent years, it is obviously still unable to completely eliminate fake matches. It is reported that since the establishment of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association in 1968, a large number of snooker players have been investigated and even banned for allegedly accepting bribes, including many world-class players - Quentin Hahn, Stephen Lee, Leo Fernandez, John Higgins and so on.
In the eyes of the industry, fake matches are closely related to the improper management of billiards, but according to informed sources interviewed by China Newsweek to the China Taiwan Association, although snooker projects in China belong to the China Billiards Association, snooker is not an Olympic sport like table tennis and badminton, and the snooker players who represent China in world-class competitions are not athletes trained by provincial and municipal sports bureaus, all of them are family investment training, and independently bear the expenses of playing and living in the UK, and live separately. Therefore, it is difficult for the Chinese Billiards Association to manage athletes uniformly like other sports.
More people believe that the players risk fake matches because they are "too poor". It is understood that billiards is an extremely professional sport, the learning period is very long and expensive, this pure expenditure should be maintained for at least five years. According to the CBSA World Snooker Academy enrollment brochure, the tuition fee for the entry "starting flight" is 100,000 yuan for the whole year, and the parents of Chinese teenager Si Jia Hui spent more than 800,000 yuan to train him for 5 years. In addition, most Chinese players who want to go further need to bear the cost of overseas training.
However, in the end, the prize money that the players receive is completely disproportionate to the investment. According to feedback from some professional players and their managers, the cost of living in the UK for professional players is about 30,000 pounds (about 250,000 yuan) a year, and the 12 players currently ranked behind Cao Yupeng are unable to make ends meet.
Compared to other sports, snooker players do not have a good career income. According to statistics from snooker's professional website, the "billiards emperor" Stephen Hendry, who retired in 2012, has a total 27-year career income (match bonuses, commercial endorsements, event appearance fees, etc.) of about $30 million, while seven-time F1 champion Hamilton has an annual salary of $30 million alone.
Ding Junhui also had opinions on the World Federation of Taiwan Compatriots. At the end of November 2022, in the second round of the 2022 Snooker Scottish Open, Ding Junhui lost 2:4 to England's Joe O'Connor and missed the round of 16. After the game, Ding Junhui frantically frightened the World Taiwan Federation through the "three strikes" of social media: waiting for four hours, starting at midnight, losing the game without bonuses, and even after the game because the time was too late, even the car could not be hit... A series of shocking encounters broke the "elegant" impression of snooker all along.
"It's a joke to think of any sport that starts at 11 o'clock, what kind of sport requires athletes to wait four hours on the field to go up and play, making a lot of sponsor money to give players a little bonus." "You have to take care of yourself, pay for training, book hotels and flights, do everything on your own, you can't afford to hire a team to take care of everything. Maybe you make thirty or forty thousand pounds a year, but there is nothing left, what's the point? The bonus should have been boosted. ”
For Ding Junhui in a later interview with foreign media, said that snooker sports are going downhill, resulting in fewer and fewer young people engaged in sports, "Look at the Chinese legion now playing on the tour, most of them are veterans, there are no sixteen or seventeen-year-old players, because the bonus is too small, Chinese young players are going to play Chinese eight-ball, can get 50,000 pounds, almost 30 to 50 games a year." That's why those players don't feel the need to be in snooker, even if you love snooker? It's that people have to live first! I want to reform and help move snooker in the right direction, and I don't want to see snooker fall apart. ”
O'Sullivan, a seven-time world champion and more than £12 million in prize money in his career, also said: "Snooker is a sport with no future, the prize money is too low, and the lives of all but the top players are mostly tight. The vast majority of players in the history of the sport have wasted their lives. ”
Reshaping the image of snooker is a long way off
In fact, snooker has been on the decline in recent years, with only 5 sponsors on the backdrop wall of last year's World Snooker Championship interviews. Since 2020, the total prize money of the World Championship, which has the highest gold content of snooker, is only 2.395 million pounds, and its championship prize has been maintained at 500,000 pounds, which is almost a fraction of the prize money of professional sports such as golf, football, and tennis.
From the 2021 to the 2022 season, Yan Bingtao won the Masters championship, Zhao Xintong won the first British Championship trophy of his career, and at the same time, including Si Jia Hui and Fan Zengyi all created surprises in top events. If there is no surprise in the snooker arena in the next decade, Chinese snooker players will be the number one hegemon.
However, the large-scale ban of snooker players has undoubtedly pushed the domestic snooker movement to the abyss, although the World Taiwan Federation may not impose a lifetime ban on the player, but it is not ruled out that the China Taiwan Association will follow the precedent to impose additional penalties on these players.
Objectively speaking, behind the continuous turmoil of snooker match-fixing is the long-term development dilemma of snooker, whether the event is well received, the prize money is too low, the viewing of the event is not high, and the commercial exposure is insufficient, etc., these are all problems that need to be solved urgently by the World Federation of Taiwan Affairs.
At the same time, the development of domestic snooker sports not only needs fresh blood, but also needs a fair and just competition atmosphere, to solve the problem of fake matches, and to have the determination of strong men to break their wrists, in order to promote the obvious improvement of snooker and then restore the reputation of the international billiards community.
Note: The images used in this article are from All Sports Photos