Tennis takes easy way out in match-fixing scandal.
WILL TENNIS FINALLY TAKE SERIOUS ACTION ON GAMBLING ALLEGATIONS?
There was a rare sight in Melbourne on Monday : a press conference attended by almost all tennis’s major power- brokers, including men’s tour boss Chris Kermode, women’s tour boss Steve Simon, and Bill Babcock, the director of the Grand Slam committee.
This unusual display of cooperation came in response to explosive allegations that players who regularly trigger alarm bells on betting exchanges are being allowed to go about their shady business unchecked — although Kermode questioned why, if it is so easy to prove wrongdoing, the story declined to identify any of the culprits.
Ironically, the press conference was cut short after less than 10 minutes by tournament officials who insisted that the room was required for standard player interviews: yet another instance of tennis’s habit of carrying on as if everything was hunky- dory when it clearly is not.
While there is nothing in the BBC/BuzzFeed investigation that suggests deliberate obfuscation by the ATP and other tennis authorities, the sheer wealth of detail must call the scope and quality of the Tennis Integrity Unit’s work into question.
To t ake one example, the allegations include the claim that “one top- 50 player competing in the Australian Open is suspected of repeatedly fixing his first set.” Anyone who spends much time on tennis’s betting exchanges will probably be able to identify the alleged offender.
But has this player been the subject of any further investigation by the Integrity Unit? We do not know because its policy is never to comment on individuals or cases.
If there is a moral to this story, it is that tennis has once again gone f or the easy option, rather than the copper- bottomed one. A significant opportunity was missed in 2008, when the ATP decided to staff its brand new Integrity Unit with a group of former police detectives yet declined to employ anyone whose background lay in internet betting or even in modern information technology.
According to Ben Gunn, another former policeman who has worked for the British Horseracing Authority: “They were trying to do it, in my mind, with one hand tied behind their back.”
Since i ts f ormation in 2007, the Integrity Unit has had £ 10 million ($ 14.2 million) spent on it, and has delivered 18 convictions and six life bans, yet most of those have applied to obscure players. Austria’s Daniel Kollerer — who was ranked No. 385 at the time of his conviction but had been as high as No. 55 — remains the highest- profile name on the list.
A more telling intervention, however, was made by the Italian police last year, when they accused two former top- 50 players — Potito Starace and Daniele Bracciali — of fixing based on conversations that had been intercepted via phone and online networks.
Defenders of the status quo question whether it matters how highly a player is ranked. A bust is a bust, and the sport wants to believe that most of the problems are at Challenger and Futures level tournaments a nyway, where pl ayers are most sorely in need of money.
But the example of the player with t he f i rst- set habit suggests that the sickness goes all the way to the top. One of his suspicious matches, flagged- up by the sort of analysts who follow market trends, came at l ast year’s U. S. Open. These are not all tin- pot events. And the level of the tournament does matter. Match- fixers defraud innocent gamblers, but they also defraud the fans: which is serious enough when they are playing for the benefit of two men and a dog in Nowheresville, Arizona, but far worse when they are being watched by thousands around the court and potentially millions more on TV.
In the Integrity Unit’s defence, the number of suspect matches showing up on betting exchanges has fallen significantly since it came i nto being. But the unit could be more assertive still, as well as better funded.
There are other ways to fight the battle too, notably by improving prize money at the l ower l evels. This week’s Challenger- l e vel event in Rio de Janeiro is paying out $7,200 to its winner. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands are being gambled on individual matches at the event. A player could probably pick up five times the champion’s cheque for throwing a match.
In a fascinating interview yesterday, Roger Federer called for the game to invest more in safeguards, and also underlined the importance of the ATP University, where young players are educated in everything from pensions to banned supplements.
We all need to pay more attention to t his underworld if its shadowy villains are going to be dragged into the light.