Lee given 12-year ban from snooker

Snooker player Stephen Lee has been
banned for 12 years after being found
guilty of seven match-fixing charges.
Lee, 38, of Trowbridge, Wiltshire, has also
been told to pay £40,000 costs.
The former world number five cannot play in
any game sanctioned by the World Professional
Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA).
He denied the allegations, which included a
match at the World Snooker Championship in
2009, and intends to appeal.
Snooker's governing body says it is "the worst
case of corruption" it has ever seen, and the
longest ban imposed on a player by the
organisation.
"The WPBSA has a zero tolerance approach to
match fixing and this is further evidence of our
uncompromising approach to dealing with
such issues," said a spokesman.
The ban is calculated from 12 October 2012,
when an interim suspension was imposed, and
means Lee will not be able to compete as a
professional snooker player before 12 October
2024, the date of his 50th birthday.
He was ordered to pay costs to help cover
legal and other expenses of the WPBSA in
bringing the case.
Lee has the right to appeal against the verdict
and sentence, and would be required to submit
any such appeal within a fortnight.
Independent tribunal chairman Adam Lewis QC
had warned the player he faced "a significant
sanction" following a hearing in Bristol earlier
in September.
His 35-page summary of the case published on
16 September said three groups of gamblers
made a total profit of nearly £100,000 from
betting on his matches.
In a statement published on Wednesday, Lewis
said the player was taken advantage of by
others.
"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," he added.
"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."
Lewis points out that Lee previously had a
police investigation into match-fixing claims
hanging over him, having been arrested in
2010, before the Crown Prosecution Service
decided not to pursue charges in early
October 2012.
Lee, who has been a professional for more
than 20 years and the winner of five ranking
titles, was found to have fixed the outcome in
seven matches in 2008 and 2009.
The tribunal ruled he deliberately lost matches
against Ken Doherty and Marco Fu at the 2008
Malta Cup and agreed to lose the first frame
against both Stephen Hendry and Mark King at
the 2008 UK Championship.
In addition, Lee lost matches by a
predetermined score to Neil Robertson at the
2008 Malta Cup and to Mark Selby at the 2009
China Open.
Lee similarly conspired to lose his 2009 World
Championship first round match to Ryan Day,
going on to be defeated 10-4.
If his offences had taken place more recently,
he would have been given a mandatory lifetime
ban under a tougher new disciplinary regime
aimed at countering corruption, but his case
was dealt with under the rules which applied
at the time of the matches in question.
Fellow professional Joe Jogia was given a two-
year ban in July 2012 for "lower-end" offences
after an investigation into suspicious betting
patterns on a match from which he withdrew
with a leg injury.
Four-time world champion John Higgins was
found guilty of "giving the impression" he
would breach betting rules, and of failing to
report an approach in 2010. He was banned
for six months.
Australian Quinten Hann was banned for eight
years in 2006 for match-fixing offences after a
newspaper sting in which he accepted a
proposal to lose a China Open match.
While Hann remains suspended, South African
Peter Francisco has returned to the game at a
low level after serving a five-year match-fixing
ban handed down in 1995, following his 10-2
loss to Jimmy White at the World
Championship.
WPBSA chairman Jason Ferguson said: "We take
no pride in having to deal with such serious
issues.
"However, this demonstrates our commitment
to ensuring that snooker is free from
corruption.
"It is an important part of our anti-corruption
approach that players found to be involved in
fixing matches or any aspect of a match are
severely dealt with. We work closely with
partners globally and the message we are
sending is that if you get involved in match
fixing you will be found out and removed from
the sport."