Two snooker players have been handed lifetime bans from the sport

Stephen Lee has returned to snooker after serving a 12-year ban but his sanction is no longer the most severe handed down by the sport's governing body.

Lee was found guilty of match-fixing in 2013 having sought to influence the outcome of seven matches in 2008 and 2009.

His ban, backdated to October 2012, expired in October 2024. The 50-year-old set up a snooker academy in China in 2015 despite being ineligible to play, and was found to have been working illegally in Hong Kong in 2018.

The English cueist returned to the sport recently, appearing in an exhibition match in Thailand against former world number one James Wattana, who last participated on the professional circuit in 2014.

Lee remains barred from events sanctioned by the World Pool, Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) while legal costs are outstanding but there's no such technicality in the cases of snooker's pair of lifetime bans.

The major match-fixing scandal that saw 2025 World Snooker Championship winner Zhao Xintong banned for a year and eight months also took down a number of his high-profile Chinese compatriots in 2023.

Two players were banned from snooker for life and each ordered to pay £43,000 in costs, smashing Lee's record sanction from the WPBSA.

36-year-old Liang Wenbo "was found guilty of fixing or being a party to fixing five matches, trying to get other players to fix nine matches, betting on snooker matches, threatening another player, deleting messages and asking other players to, failing to cooperate with the enquiry," according to BBC Sport.

Liang had been a UK Championship finalist, losing to Neil Robertson at York's Barbican Centre in 2015.

Li Hang, 32, was the world number 71 when he "was found guilty of fixing or being a party to fixing five matches, trying to get other players to fix seven matches, betting on snooker matches, deleting messages and asking other players to."

Snooker star Zhao Xintong pictured (Image: Getty)

Xintong's ban ended in September 2024 and his spectacular triumph at the Crucible in May made him China's first snooker world champion. He was banned from playing in China until July, returning to compete in the Shanghai Masters at the start of the new season. Zhao's loss at the hands of Kyren Wilson was his first defeat in 27 matches.

Despite the scandal that engulfed the sport two years ago, snooker is big business and growing in China. Tournaments are well attended, clubs and coaching facilities are booming, and players are becoming more famous at home and more competitive than ever on the world stage.

Blockbuster beginnings in 2025-26

The new season on the baize has already been full of headlines. World number two Wilson went on to win in Shanghai before Robertson trousered £500,000 for winning the Saudi Arabia Masters by beating Ronnie O'Sullivan in the final.

O'Sullivan became the second player to make two maximums in the same match, knocking in a pair of sublime 147 breaks in his semi-final against Chris Wakelin.

The third Wuhan Open is currently at the quarter-finals stage, with China's Si Jiahui, Zhang Anda and Xiao Guodong still in contention.