Tennis is struck by a ‘tsunami’ of match-fixing
BUT REPORT SAYS WIMBLEDON IS CLEAN
ON THe scale of great revelations, it was a bit like saying that roger Federer plays a nifty game on grass, or that rafael Nadal is a useful clay-courter.
That tennis has a ‘serious integrity problem’ with corrupt matches in the lowest tiers of the men’s circuit while being clean at the top — bar isolated pockets — should not be a huge surprise.
This was the main thrust of the Independent review of Integrity in Tennis, published yesterday.
The sport has paid more than £15million for its two-year investigation and, while that may be the cost of an average full-back in the Premier League, it remains a considerable sum in tennis.
The interim report came with a few verbal flourishes for illustration: ‘The current tennis environment provides a lamentably fertile breeding ground for breaches of integrity,’ was one statement, alluding to impoverished wannabe professionals being tempted to make money through betting markets.
While events such as Wimbledon are not implicated, one investigator from the Tennis Integrity Unit described the problem at some lower-level events as a ‘tsunami’. A betting operator called the situation ‘grimmer than grim’.
To put that in perspective, there were 241 basic ‘betting alerts’ flagged up last year from more than 100,000 matches on the pro tours. of the alerts, down on the previous year, 193 were at men’s Futures and Challenger events.
The work of Adam Lewis QC and his team of lawyers will, nonetheless, have some value. Tennis can no longer be accused of taking corruption too lightly, or of any systemic attempts to sweep malpractice under the tarpaulin.
‘The panel has not discovered any evidence demonstrating a cover-up in relation to these issues, by the international governing bodies, the TIU or anyone else,’ the report said.
The TIU was described as under-resourced and accused of being overly conservative, taking up to a year to get round to conducting interviews related to some suspicious matches.
The Tennis Integrity Board, which oversees the TIU, is made up of governing-body representatives and was criticised for not being sufficiently assertive.
There was also concern about cases dating back to the 2000s in
that some unnamed offenders may have been advised to retire, rather than face the music.
But Lewis held back from anything too stinging, saying merely that tennis reacted ‘behind the curve’ to the online betting explosion, and that it ‘made errors’ and ‘missed opportunities’.
There were some constructive recommendations, which the sport’s authorities — Wimbledon among them — have pledged to implement after a consultation period. Some will be contentious. one particular point, sure to be the subject of some argument, is the proposed discontinuation of the sale of official live scores from lowest-tier tournaments, which facilitate in-match betting.
The current deal is worth some £13m a year to the sport and Lewis cited a direct correlation between the surge in betting alerts and the introduction of
this service by Sportradar in 2012.
Top players will be unhappy at the suggestion that appearance fees — permitted at middleranking tournaments — be made public. It is argued these could be seen as an incentive for someone to pocket the money and ‘tank’.
It is also proposed that integrity investigators leave the International Tennis Federation’s roehampton offices to operate internationally. However, the idea of ‘setting a good example’ by axing betting company sponsorships at tournaments looks more like window dressing.
Lewis played down the influence of organised crime in tennis and he did not insist that the fight against corruption be specifically linked to that against doping.
Many see doping as at least as big a threat to the integrity of tennis — and not just at the highest level.