Ronnie O’Sullivan. Picture by Monique Limbos

MASTERS champion Ronnie O’Sullivan has been fined £8,000 by snooker’s governing body for posting comments on Twitter which ‘damaged the image of the game’ and for abusing a referee.

O’Sullivan was fined a total of £7,000 by World Snooker for posts he made on the social networking site in September and October last year.

The world champion caused a stir when he tweeted other players were guilty of match-fixing following Stephen Lee’s 12 year ban from the sport. O’Sullivan later retracted the comments.

He also made a suggestion that he took pills to enhance his performance and sent a tweet of an offensive nature.

A statement from the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Authority said he comments damaged the sport.

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

“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 was also fined an additional £1,000 for abusing a referee during his shock 5-4 defeat to Thepchaiya Un-Nooh in the German Masters qualifying round in December.

O’Sullivan failed to comply with a request by the referee and was later abusive, insulting and disrespectful towards the referee.

The five-times world champion admitted the allegation and apologised for his behaviour citing conditions at the venue and that he was feeling unwell at the time as the reasons. The governing body also warned him over his future behaviour.