Russia mafia fixing tennis?
11th January, 2008
The head of women’s tennis Larry Scott has warned that organised crime – including the Russian mafia, could be involved in fixing tennis matches.
Scott said that some players have claimed that they have been asked to lose matches on purpose to give the fixer the advantage: "One has to assume that people running organised crime would be involved in trying to gain an advantage by corrupting the competition. We have to be prepared for the possibility [of Russian mafia involvement] but we have no proof."
Scott said anti-corruption would be "the first item on the agenda" when he addresses 250 players before the start of the Australian Open this weekend. This comes after the announcement earlier this week that the men and women’s tours would be joining forces with the organisers of the four Grand Slam event’s organisers to review their anti0-corruption policies.
He went on to explain: "We have identified that there's an awful lot of gambling on tennis and that players have been approached by people who are trying to persuade them to throw a match or provide information about a match with incentives of money."
"That's obviously against all the rules. We've got no proof of corruption having taken place, so I don't believe there is any corruption in women's tennis now.”
"But we are taking all reasonable steps to combat the threat and have been focussing a lot of attention on educating players on the importance of coming forward to share information with us.”
"Several players have come forward to talk to us about the approaches [to throw matches]. They have acted very, very responsibly by coming to us and ensuring we have this information."
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