Snooker star with mammoth 12-year ban can finally play again as suspension ends

It has been a long time coming, but disgraced snooker star Stephen Lee can now compete in the billiard world again after serving a humongous 12-year ban

View 2 Images

Match fixing snooker player Stephen Lee can now return to the sport after his 12-year ban came to an end.

In 2013, the former World No. 5 was found guilty of seven counts of fixing matches between 2008 and 2009 and ordered to serve a 12-year ban, backdated to his original suspension date of October 12, 2012. The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) described his actions as "the worst case of corruption" it has ever come across.

While Lee insisted he was "totally innocent" and "devastated" with the huge punishment he received, he was still found guilty following a three-day hearing in Bristol. The tribunal ruled he deliberately lost to Ken Doherty and Marco Fu at the 2008 Malta Cup and also agreed to lose the first frame in matches against Stephen Hendry and Mark King at the UK Championship in 2008.

It was the longest ban ever imposed on a player in the sport, until lifetime suspensions were handed to Chinese duo Liang Wenbo and Li Hang in 2023. On the day he turned 50, Lee's ban finally expired, allowing him to return to snooker.

In a 2022 interview with Mirror Sport, Lee outlined his feelings towards a potential return to the sport. He said: “I must get asked this weekly, daily, minutely. I would like to say no, but I am still capable of playing.

“Let’s see what happens in two years. It’s not a no, and not a yes. We can only just see what happens in a couple of years’ time. I have some exciting things coming up, and I’m also getting older.

“My eyes are getting worse, and I never had good eyes to start with. As you get older the determination and the fire goes.”

Earlier this year, when asked by a Facebook user whether he intends on returning, Lee bluntly replied: "Not a chance of it my friend. I struggle to break off nowadays. It’s down to my son now…”

View 2 Images

As well as the ban, he was also ordered to pay £40,000 in costs. He then appealed the decision unsuccessfully, resulting in his bills rising to a whopping £125,000.

If he was to play again, he would need to pay the figure to the WPBSA before he can return to the association's snooker tournaments. If he chooses to return to snooker, Lee would be able to compete at Q Tour, the WSF Championship or Q School to qualify for next season's World Snooker Tour.

A 2012 statement published by Tribunal chairman Adam Lewis QC said: "I concluded that Mr Lee did not strike me as a cynical cheat, but rather as a weak man who under financial pressure, succumbed to the temptation to take improper steps that he may well have justified to himself as not really wrong, because the ultimate result of the match, win or lose, was the same.

"These breaches occurred when Mr Lee was in a financially perilous state not entirely of his own making and was finding it difficult to obtain entry to enough tournaments.

"As a weak man in a vulnerable position, he succumbed to temptation. I consider it unlikely that he was the prime mover or instigator of the activity. It seems to me likely that advantage was taken of him."

The WPBSA said in a statement to the Mirror: “Stephen Lee would need to reach a satisfactory agreement with the WPBSA over the settlement of his outstanding costs before he could return to compete at WPBSA/WST events.”