Liang Wenbo and Li Hang have been handed lifetime bans from snooker among 10 Chinese players excluded in one of sports’ biggest match-fixing scandals.
On a dreadful day for the game the guilty verdicts were released on a range of match-fixing related charges and sanctions from the independent disciplinary hearing chaired by Ian Mill KC. Former English Open winner Liang, 36, was found guilty on a range of offences including fixing matches, as well as encouraging others to do the same.
He also failed to co-operate with the investigation, bet on snooker, deleted messages and threatened others with the investigation and threatening another player to do the same. Liang was fined £43,000 in costs. Li fixed or was a party to fixing five matches, and also encouraged others to do likewise. He also failed to co-operate, deleted messages and bet on snooker matches. He was also fined £43,000 costs.