A BANNED tennis player has launched a scathing attack on the men’s professional tour, labelling the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) a “mafia” organisation.
Austrian player Daniel Koellerer, 32, was given a lifetime ban by the ATP Tour in 2011 when he was found guilty of match-fixing through a Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) investigation.
The former world No. 55 was the first player to receive a life ban from tennis after being found guilty of three charges under the Uniform Tennis Ant-Corruption program.
However, Koellerer insists there are two sides to every story and believes he was unfairly punished through a flawed hearing process.
The right-hander has called out the ATP for protecting its biggest stars while “sacrificing” lower ranked players during anti-corruption investigations.
He said it is this slant from tennis administrators that has ruined his life.
“The ATP has destroyed my life,” Koellerer told tenniscircus.com in Italian.
“My house, my wife and my child, everything is gone and I was depressed.”
He claimed he was “condemned without proof for match fixing”.
Koellerer has admitted to being approached three times to manipulate the result of a tennis match, but insists he immediately refused all three offers to fix matches.
The TIU’s ruling against Koellerer was upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2012 when the international sport tribunal ruled the TIU had met the burden of proof needed to find Koellerer guilty of allegedly making “invitations to other tennis players to fix matches on five occasions”.
He says the ATP Tour’s “big four” — Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal — would never have been treated like he was.
“The ATP would never would block Djokovic, Federer, Nadal and Murray,” he said.
“I do not think these players manipulate the system, but if they did it would be suicide for the ATP. The best players are protected. They are too important to be sacrificed.
“I am an eyesore for the ATP. They have sacrificed me to show the other players what can happen. There are protected players and players who the ATP wants to get rid of.
“I’m sure that one or more players out of the top 20 manipulate matches. Can I testify? No. This is totally a guess on my part. To solve the problem, the betting must be simply suppressed. But obviously it cannot do, because some tournaments are sponsored by bookmakers.
“This is something dirty. This is a mafia. This is something corrupt.”
Koellerer said he knocked back every offer made to him by suspicious characters.
“I was approached by an intermediary, once I was called into a hotel room, and once they spoke to me at dinner,” he said.
“For a game against (Nikolay) Davydenko they offered me $50,000, same thing for a game with Tipsarevic.
“Once even $100,000 to lose against Massu. I immediately refused, I have nothing to do with this.
“I was pretty stupid on the tennis court, racquets destroyed, insulting the referee. I was just undisciplined, but the scams had nothing to do with it”
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