Snooker star given 12-year suspension missed World Championship after ban finished

Disgraced star Stephen Lee could have pursued qualification for this year's , as his 12-year ban from playing ceased in October 2024. In 2013, the , which was backdated to 2012, after being found guilty of match fixing.

He was punished for seven instances of match-fixing during 2008 and 2009, which were condemned by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) as the "the worst case of corruption" within snooker circles. Lee's punishment stood as the harshest until 2023 when . However, unlike the Chinese pair, Lee's suspension has run its course, which provided him with the opportunity to qualify for the ongoing World Snooker Championship, had he chosen to do so.

Should the ambition bite for next year, Lee must first clear the substantial £40,000 fine levied by the WPBSA, which escalated to £125,000 after an ill-fated appeal attempt. Paying off this debt would open pathways for qualification via options like the Q Tour, the WSF Championship, or Q School for the next World Snooker Tour season.

To facilitate his return, the WPBSA clarified to the Mirror, stating: "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."

Lee had previously expressed his reluctance to return to competition in an interview with back in 2022. 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. My eyes are getting worse, and I never had good eyes to start with. As you get older the determination and the fire goes."

Around the same time, in a candid response on Facebook, Lee further quashed rumours of a comeback, writing: "Not a chance of it my friend. I struggle to break off nowadays. It's down to my son now.."

Lee responded to the match-fixing allegations, claiming he was "totally innocent" and "devastated" by the guilty verdict. However, a tribunal found him guilty of intentionally throwing matches against Ken Doherty and Marco Fu at the 2008 Malta Cup, and also deliberately losing the opening frame in matches against Stephen Hendry and Mark King at the 2008 UK Championship.

A 2012 verdict from Tribunal Chairman Adam Lewis 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."