Snooker: Higgins cleared of match-fixing but fined £75,000 over tabloid sting

John Higgins, the world No1 snooker player who was accused in May by the News of the World of agreeing what the paper described as "a disgraceful deal to fix a string of high-profile matches after demanding a £300,000 kickback" was yesterday cleared of any actual or intended match fixing.

The newspaper made the allegations – which also involved Higgins' business partner, Pat Mooney – on the weekend of the world championship final, the most prestigious occasion in the snooker calendar. The tabloid also posted a video on its website, showing Higgins and Mooney at a meeting with undercover reporters in Kiev in April, apparently agreeing to fix frames at unspecified future events for cash. It was an edited video, erroneously subtitled in places, but it was apparently damning in any case.

Higgins, 35, and Mooney were initially charged by snooker's governing body, the WPBSA, with four offences each, including match fixing, and corrupt conduct. Both those charges were dropped, but Higgins pleaded guilty to two others relating to discussing betting, and failing to report that discussion to the authorities.

For pleading guilty to those, Higgins received a six-month suspension, backdated to May, when he was originally suspended, and a £75,000 fine. Mooney has been banned from snooker for life. Higgins, from Wishaw in Scotland, is a three-times former world champion and will be free to resume his career in November.

A disciplinary tribunal hearing staged in London on Tuesday and yesterday, chaired by an independent judge, Ian Mill QC, found that Higgins had ended up in the fateful meeting with undercover reporters with no prior knowledge that fixing would be discussed. "I have no doubt that the [WPBSA] was right to conclude that this account by Mr Higgins was a truthful one," Mill said.

"Having studied all of the evidence in its entirety [the WPBSA] accept that there has been no dishonesty on the part of John Higgins," the governing body said in a statement.

From 2007, Mooney and Higgins were legitimately in business together working as snooker promoters, "growing" the game in new markets. In an elaborate "sting" operation, the News of the World's reporters had pretended they wanted to stage events, and that they wanted to bet on them for corrupt profit. Mooney and Higgins were approached by the paper, it said, after a tip-off from a "sports insider".

Mooney was recorded by the paper engaging in conversation with reporters about fixing. He always maintained he was led into these discussions by the reporters. Ian Mill said in his findings: "I was unimpressed by Mr Mooney as a witness and I found much of his account highly implausible."

A statement released on Mooney's behalf after the verdict said: "Mr Mooney bitterly regrets being caught up in the News of the World's entrapment and is unreservedly sorry for the impact that sting has had on snooker and Mr Higgins in particular."

Snooker has been beset with rumours and allegations of match fixing in recent years: at least two "serious" cases have been handled by the Gambling Commission, and three players have been arrested and face further investigations or legal action. Higgins was not involved in any of those cases; the players who are involved have never been suspended from playing.

Higgins said after the verdict: "I have never been involved in any form of snooker match fixing... If I am guilty of anything it is of naivety and trusting those who, I believed, were working in the best interests of snooker and myself."