Mark Allen Fined 10,000 Pounds

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.