Innocent snooker stars caught up in match-fixing scandal left in disbelief

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Innocent snooker players unwittingly dragged into one of sport’s greatest match-fixing scandals reacted with horror yesterday. Rob Milkins was one of the players of last season – winning the Welsh Open and pocketing around £400,000 after claiming a bumper series bonus. But as 10 Chinese players were banned including Liang Wenbo and Li Hang for life it emerged that Milkins’ 5-0 win against Lu Ning in a European Masters qualifier last July had been corrupt.

Lu was banned for five years and four months for fixing four matches in total, as well as failing to co-operate with the investigation, and betting on snooker. Ireland’s Aaron Hill, 21, was another to find out just this week that his 4-0 victory over Zhao Jianbo in a Northern Ireland Open qualifier last August had been fixed.

Liang and Li were also found to have been involved in encouraging and pressuring Zhao – who was banned for two years and four months – to take part. World No 13 Milkins, 47, said: “It is shocking. Thinking back now, I played really well in that game and he couldn’t do anything right.

“And when you have played well, you often don’t think much of how badly the other player did because you give yourself the credit. So I didn’t have a sniff of it – not a clue. I didn’t give him much of a chance for it to even look suspicious, and I certainly didn’t come off thinking ‘He’s chucked that’.”

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Hill said: “It really shocked me to find this out, because I remember putting myself under such pressure to win. It was to qualify for Northern Ireland and I really wanted to play in Belfast. And now I realise the kid wasn’t even trying.

“The consequences are there and clear if any player is stupid enough to try it again. I don’t we’ll ever see any more of it in the sport. You’d have to be a lunatic. These players are disgraced for life, themselves and their families, they will always be known for match-fixing.

“And I would praise the WPBSA and the integrity unit for how they have dealt with it. They have done a strong investigation and got the guilty verdicts we needed.”

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Meanwhile, WPBSA chairman Jason Ferguson insists there could be criminal charges to follow for the players in China – while identifying necessary steps to prevent any repeat.

Ferguson said: “We liaise with the Chinese association [CBSA] and also the Chinese government. They were tough in the past getting names behind all this, and I expect that again. And I would say it is still possible there will be more and further separate action over in China, and that could even include criminal charges.

“Education has to be key here, and there will be changes. It became impossible to get in front of players especially in China during Covid lockdown. If the players know they will always be caught, and that will change their lives forever. We must tighten up with more scrutiny, and we are also moving into the licensing of managers and agents.”

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