Ronnie O’Sullivan is rarely out of the papers, whether it’s for his snooker ability on the table, his temperamental behaviour off it, or his ability to crop up when the limelight should be on somebody else.
Stephen Lee on Monday was found guilty of match fixing, to which he is likely to be handed a considerable sentence next week.
O’Sullivan today somewhat controversially came to Twitter to voice his opinions on the matter.
“I’ve heard there’s many more players who throw snooker matches .. I suppose Steve lee was just caught out”
“I just love putting it out there bring it all out in the open.. Nothing like a bit of transparency is what I say..
World Snooker released the following statement in reply to O’Sullivan’s online comments.
“We take these type of allegations very seriously. We have written to Ronnie asking him to explain his comments and to provide details of any match fixing and the names of the players that he is referring to.
“Clearly, to make these type of allegations without informing the Governing Body through the correct channels is wholly unacceptable and extremely damaging to the Sport. We await his response.
“We will not be making any further comment on this matter until it has been investigated further.”
Ronnie is by no means not allowed to have an opinion but these comments can be perceived in one of two ways, if not more.
1) Defamatory to his fellow competitors.
2) If he knows who these players are, he should report them to the appropriate authorities.
Later tonight, immediately after the statement was released, Ronnie tweeted, “No concrete evidence of match fixing in snooker But just like everyone one who works in an office they have a good idea who’s shagging who.”
I’m sure very little will come of this relatively minor and not too unusual O’Sullivan incident but one thing is less certain – how long it will take before the damaging effect that this match fixing scandal overall will subside.
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