Liste des snooker players queried for possible match-fixing

Since it began as a professional sport, snooker has been the subject of charges of corruption.

Snooker pundit and professional player Willie Thorne believed that match-fixing was commonplace in the sport, citing his own experience of being given a payment to rig a match.[1] Joe Davis, the first world champion and founder of professional sports, is thought to have “carried” lesser opponents in multi-session bouts in order to maximize gate income. This is the oldest recorded incidence of corruption in the game.[2] The Sunday Times revealed the manipulation of non-tournament televised snooker matches for “the artificial production of climaxes” in a piece headed “Great TV Snooker Frame-up” that ran in 1968.

It was agreed upon by players Ray Edmonds, John Spencer, Gary Owen, and Fred Davis that a broadcast match would conclude with a decisive frame and that they would play to create dramatic suspense. According to Davis, he saw these bouts as “five frames of comedy: I hate taking part in something that’s not genuine”.[3]

On occasion, players have been forced to manipulate the outcome. Cartels have specifically targeted Thai gamers. While Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon was the target of a firebomb assault on his Rotherham house after the governing body started an inquiry against him and another Thai player Passakorn Suwannawat, James Wattana once got a death threat as part of a match-fixing attempt[4].[5]

Proving match-fixing is a challenging task.