Thailand's Thanawat Tirapongpaiboon won't play professional snooker until at least 2025 after fixing the outcome of six matches.
The 28-year-old had been suspended from all snooker activity pending a formal hearing of the WPBSA disciplinary committee. He's now been handed a six-year ban, with three years and three months suspended provided he works with the governing body's anti-corruption department.
His suspension runs from 15 June 2022, until 14 March 2025. Tirapongpaiboon, who in 2010 became the youngest player to make a competitive maximum 147 break at 16 years old, was also ordered to pay £1,925 in costs.
He fell off the world tour in 2016, only to make a comeback bid this year. But after being refused membership to the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), he agreed to cooperate with a new match-fixing inquiry.
The first two charges related to 2013 and an Australian Open qualifier in Gloucester and a Shanghai Masters qualifier in Doncaster. In 2014, he fixed his China Open qualifier, again in Gloucester, against Ding Junhui, who on Friday whitewashed Ronnie O'Sullivan at the UK Championships.
Also that year, he did the same against Martin Gould in the Welsh Open and when facing Stuart Bingham in the UK Championship. The final charge related to 2015, when he lost to Martin O'Donnell, at PTC European Tour 2 in Furth, Germany.
There has never been any suggestion of wrongdoing by any of his opponents. And now WPBSA chairman Jason Ferguson has fired a warning to all players who think they can get away with similar behaviour.
"This case shows that if a player chooses to fix a match they will be caught, no matter how long after the event," he said, via the BBC. "Thanawat has shown true remorse and wants to help ensure that other players do not make the mistakes that he did as a young player by assisting the WPBSA in its player education programme."
And Ferguson added that the player, who once reached a ranking high of 67 in the world, had been show leniency because of his transparency in the investigation: "This has been reflected in the sanction," he said.
