Snooker participant Mark King has misplaced his enchantment in opposition to a five-year ban for match-fixing.
King was handed the ban in November 2024 after an impartial disciplinary committee discovered the Englishman responsible of 1 rely of match-fixing and one rely of offering inside info on a match.
The previous Northern Eire Open champion was suspended by the game’s world governing physique, the World Skilled Billiards and Snooker Affiliation (WPBSA), on 18 March 2023.
That was after suspicious betting was reported on his match in opposition to Joe Perry on 13 February that yr on the Welsh Open, which King misplaced 4-0. Perry was not accused of any wrongdoing.
King was ordered to pay over £68,000 in prices and banned from the game for 5 years.
King, 51, contested the punishment and his enchantment was heard by an impartial appeals committee on 8-9 April 2025.
The previous world quantity 11 offered 4 factors to be heard inside his enchantment, one among which he selected to desert at first of the listening to.
He acknowledged that bettors putting giant sums on 4-1 and 4-2, in addition to the precise results of 4-0, weakened the argument that he had agreed to lose 4-0.
King additionally argued that his relationship with one of many folks linked to the betting was flawed.
Lastly, he complained that the disciplinary committee reached quite a lot of flawed conclusions surrounding his kind and an harm he was struggling with going into the match in opposition to Perry.
“Nowhere on this enchantment has it been demonstrated {that a} factual choice is so flawed it couldn’t have been reached, or an evaluative choice is so flawed that it may be mentioned to be unreasonable,” the impartial appeals committee’s closing report acknowledged.
It added: “In our view the committee reached affordable, rational, logical, clear and reasoned conclusions primarily based on all the proof which they clearly thought-about rigorously and we discover no purpose to intrude with the conclusions it reached.”
King shall be eligible for a return to the game in March 2028.
