The world's number one snooker player was suspended yesterday, hours before the sport's annual showpiece, in the wake of match-fixing allegations that threaten to fatally undermine the sport.
John Higgins, a three-time world champion, was suspended by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association and his manager, Pat Mooney, resigned from its board as the governing body launched an immediate inquiry.
Steve Davis, the veteran champion who until yesterday had provided the story of this year's World Championship when he beat Higgins in the second round, said it was "a dark day for snooker".
Higgins and his manager, Pat Mooney, were alleged by the News of the World to have agreed to accept euros 300,000 (pounds 261,000) in return for arranging the outcome of four frames in matches to be played later this year. The deal was allegedly made at a meeting with the paper's undercover reporters in the Ukrainian capital Kiev.
The government watchdog the Gambling Commission is also likely to assist in the investigation, which comes in the wake of other similar claims to hit snooker and a string of other allegations in sports including football, tennis and cricket.
Higgins was one of a handful of top players seen as central to plans recently unveiled by the WPBSA chairman, Barry Hearn, to revive a sport that has suffered a decline in popularity among television viewers and sponsors in recent years.
Higgins and Mooney were alleged by the newspaper to have agreed to lose a specific frame in four matches later this year. There was no suggestion that Higgins had previously deliberately lost a frame or match. In a statement read out on the BBC before its live coverage of the world snooker final, between Neil Robertson and Graeme Dott, Higgins insisted he had "never deliberately missed a shot, never mind intentionally lost a frame or a match" and said his conscience was "100% clear".
Hearn held a telephone conversation yesterday with Higgins, in which he warned the player that "his whole career is in doubt" if he is found guilty of planning to manipulate results.
Hearn told BBC Radio 5 Live: "I've made him aware there are very serious repercussions on this if this case is proved by the disciplinary council of the WPBSA." Asked if Higgins could play again in the future if found guilty, Hearn said: "I think it would be a real problem for him."
Earlier in the day the WPBSA said: "The strongest message needs to be sent out that this behaviour has no part to play in our game and will not be tolerated. Any wrongdoing will be severely dealt with."
Higgins has won more than pounds 5m in prize money since he turned professional in 1992.
Both Mooney, a 47-year-old Scot who sat on the WPBSA board alongside Hearn and Davis, and Higgins claimed yesterday that they went along with the plan because they feared for their lives. "In all honesty I became very worried at the way the conversation developed in Kiev," said Higgins. "When it was suggested that I throw frames in return for large sums of money, I was really spooked. I just wanted to get out of the hotel and on to the plane home.
"I didn't know if this was the Russian mafia or who we were dealing with. At that stage I felt the best course of action was just to play along with these guys and get out of Russia [sic]. Those who know me are aware of my love for snooker and that I would never do anything to damage the integrity of the sport I love. My conscience is 100% clear."
Mooney said that the pair could be "accused of being idiots and possibly naive in hindsight" but had been the victims of intimidation by what they believed to be "serious Russian crime figures" and clever editing. "However, to have been so deliberately set up in a foreign country when doing nothing other than working on behalf of snooker is malicious in the extreme," said Mooney.
The explosion in the number and type of bets on offer on sporting events as a result of the expansion of online betting, together with the expansion of the vast illegal gambling market in the far east, has led some in sport to claim the threat from match-fixing is now greater than that from doping.
Snooker is seen as particularly at risk because of the vast number of matches around the world and the difficulty in telling whether a player has deliberately lost a frame. Prompted by growing concern, the government last year launched a review headed by former Liverpool FC chief executive Rick Parry, which recommended that a new unit be formed to tackle sports integrity under the auspices of the Gambling Commission.
Uefa's president, Michel Platini, has claimed match-fixing is the biggest threat facing football. Police recently made 61 arrests in Germany and Turkey over alleged match fixing covering more than 200 matches, mostly involving smaller teams that had been offered comparatively large sums by criminal gangs.
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Captions:
John Higgins, nicknamed the Wizard of Wishaw, has been suspended by snooker's governing body over match fixing allegations
Photograph: Wattie Cheung
