O’Sullivan fined for Twitter comments and insulting referee

He was fined £6,000 plus £1,000 costs after tweeting match-fixing claims – later retracted with a formal apology – and suggesting that pills boosted his performance. A third post of an offensive nature was also cited.

He was fined a further £1,000 and warned about his future behaviour for abusing a referee during qualifying for the German Masters in Barnsley.

“The WPBSA work hard to maintain what is widely considered to be one of the strongest anti-corruption units of any sport as well as having strong anti-doping policies which involve robust testing schedules”, said World Snooker in a statement.

“The WPBSA Disciplinary Committee considered that the comments that were made undermined these efforts and were damaging to the image of the sport. Such behaviour will not be tolerated by the WPBSA.”

O’Sullivan collected his fifth Masters title on Sunday with a dominant 10-4 victory over Mark Selby at Alexandra Palace.