Stephen Lee returns from 12-year snooker ban as footage leaves fans in agreement
Stephen Lee has made his return to snooker in an exhibition match following the expiry of his 12-year ban for match-fixing.
The five-time ranking event winner was found guilty in 2013 of influencing the outcome of seven matches that took place between 2008 and 2009.
He was also found to have 'accept[ed] payment to influence the outcome of a match' on seven occasions, including a 10-4 defeat to Ryan Day at the 2009 World Snooker Championship.
Lee was handed a full 12-year ban from competitive snooker backdated to his original suspension in October 2012, which expired on his 50th birthday in October 2024.
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That ban did not prevent him from coaching in China, however, and the Wiltshire-born cueist set up an academy in Shenzhen in 2015.
He has also spent time in Hong Kong, though in 2018 avoided a prison sentence after he was found to have been working in the country illegally.
Last week, footage appeared online of Lee competing in a six-red exhibition match against former world number three James Wattana in Thailand.
The 50-year-old Englishman looked in reasonable touch, compiling a break of 46 to clear the table in frame one after Wattana had missed a chance.
In frame two, he missed a tricky pink into the top left corner after scoring 29.
The third frame was more hard-fought and went down to the colours.
Wattana missed a cut on the green into the top right pocket, with Lee then potting green, brown, blue and pink, before an extravagant black into the bottom right pocket, to win the match by two frames to one.
Afterwards, both players took part in a trickshot contest.
And fans all had the same verdict on seeing Lee's 'official' return to the snooker table.
One said: "Stephen can still play. Still got that wonderful cue action."
A second wrote: "Wonderful player to watch."
A third added: "Two brilliant players still. I'd love to see how Stephen Lee would get on if he was back on tour. He still has much more class than the other Q-School regulars."
A fourth said: "Stephen Lee is still playing very well."
Will Stephen Lee play on the World Snooker Tour?
As things stand, Lee would have to settle unpaid fines imposed by the WPBSA if he was to compete on the World Snooker Tour again.
As per SnookerHQ, the 50-year-old owed the WPBSA a sum of £125,000 in legal fees related to the court cases and unsuccessful appeals surrounding his match-fixing case as of October 2024.
A WPBSA spokesperson told the outlet: "Stephen Lee would need to reach a satisfactory agreement with the WPBSA over settlement of his costs before he could play."
Lee said (via the Daily Mirror) in 2022 that 'it's not a no, and not a yes' over whether he would enter Q-School in an attempt to get back on the main tour.
However, last year, he replied to a fan on Facebook: "Not a chance of it my friend. I struggle to break off nowadays. It's down to my son [an amateur player] now..."
Topics: Snooker, Fan Reactions
Ryan Smart