Exclusive – Hearn: ‘I did doubt John Higgins’

World snooker supremo Barry Hearn admits he had doubts about John Higgins as the world No.1 faced up to allegations of match-fixing.

The Scot was cleared of those charges earlier this week, but Hearn has confessed there were times when he feared the claims would turn out to be true.

He told Drive Time: 'I regret to say I did doubt John Higgins. I’ve known him for a long time and was atonished by the revelations.

"But what I was looking at, what a lot of people were looking at, was an edited five minute version on DVD.

"The tribunal had access to the entire evidence and they used it to make the decision, which I have to accept.

"I'm relieved to get it finished. I'm sad for John that’s he’s broken the rules. He knows he’s acted very naively, very stupidly but, at the same time, I'm pleased he’s been cleared of the match-fixing allegations by an independent tribunal.

"He’s a strong boy and he’ll come through this. We will welcome him back into the snooker fold when his ban ends in November."

And Hearn is determined that Higgins will be the last snooker star to find himself drawn into the murky world of illegal gambling and match-fixing.

He added: "We’ve got to take a grip on gambling and the people around gambling.

"We will be announcing a major anti-corruption unit in the next couple of weeks so our players are aware of the dangers that exist and they will be made aware of the penalties if they are caught.

"And I’m going to extend it to darts because I want people to know those sports are cleaner than clean and that all players are giving 100 per cent all the time."