Following his controversial comments at the Crucible Theatre following his defeat to Cau Yupeng at this year’s World Championship, Northern Ireland’s Mark Allen has today learned his fate from the governing body. Click below for World Snooker’s statement in full…
The Disciplinary Committee of the WPBSA has formally considered the case of Mark Allen in relation to his comments in a press conference on Sunday 22nd April 2012 following his defeat in the Betfred.com World Championship at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. In this conference he accused his opponent Cao Yupeng of cheating and said that cheating appeared to be a trait of Chinese players. He named two other Chinese players as being known for cheating.
This follows on from a previous case where Mark was fined £1,000 and warned as to his future conduct for comments he made about China and the Chinese people on twitter.
The Disciplinary Committee found that he is in breach of the following members rules:
1.1 Members shall, at all times (i.e. whether at a Tournament or not), behave in a proper and correct manner consistent with their status as professional sportsmen. Members shall not do anything which is likely to intimidate, offend, insult, humiliate or discriminate against any other person on the grounds of disability, their religion, race, colour or national or ethnic origin, sex or sexual orientation.
1.2 A Member shall not make or cause to be made any statement or commit or cause to be committed any act which in the reasonable view of the WPBSA is likely to bring into disrepute the games of snooker and/or billiards.
He was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £1,000 towards the cost of the hearing and was suspended from playing for a period of three months. This suspension will only come into effect if he commits any new breach of the WPBSA Members Rules that are dealt with by the WPBSA Disciplinary process in the next six months. He has also been required to undergo media training.
The WPBSA Disciplinary Committee consider that this behaviour is unacceptable and offensive to China and the Chinese players. Such behaviour will not be tolerated by the WPBSA.
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Kevin
June 12, 2012 at 6:10 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Looking like a short career for Mark. Hearn will not accept anything to bring snooker a bad name! Unfortunately of course, in this case a lot of Allen’s statement was the erm truth!!
His stupid remarks in China and his general argument with Hearn can only mean his time is short unless someone can shut him up.
The Hearn dictatorship is becoming a little annoying at the moment. It will be interesting to see the punishment for Joe Jogia for those who remember the “harsh” treatment of the Jamie Burnett and John Higins incidents which were much higher profile than Joe’s case.
Defuso
June 13, 2012 at 8:34 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Is a statement from Mark (or his management) published / avaible? Is he going to accept the consequences?
For me it looks like the governing body rules harder each time and scares players off over time.
snoopy2608
June 14, 2012 at 7:56 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I find it interesting that it is though that Mark has been treated harshly – footballers saying similar stuff in the heat of the moment get bans , in other sports they get widely condemned.
Just because Mark and Barry don’t see eye to eye mustn’t be confused with what happened at the Crucible.
Kevin
June 14, 2012 at 12:20 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
His remarks in China were disgraceful and he deserves a hefty fine for that.
Those in Sheffield were ill advised to accus others of cheating but the camera evidence suggested he was correct.
Those in York against Hearn were just free speech but that is not allowed in a Hearn regime.
Obviously Allen needs to learn that as in any walk of life you can’t speak out in public against fellow workers and mos importantly the owner. Hearn can survuve without Allen but not the other way round.
I just think it annoying that Hearn was able to speak out against Allen without naming him of course. Whilst Hearn hasbeen great for the future of snooker in many ways there are many issues that have also been created. The ranking situation for new tourcards and the lack of prizemoney outside the top 45 or so being the worst.