TWO INTERNATIONAL TENNIS umpires have been secretly banned over a gambling scam, according to a report in the Guardian.
Following the match-fixing scandal that rocked the sport last month, it has emerged that umpires from Kazakhstan, Turkey, Croatia and Ukraine are among those who have allegedly manipulated scores in return for bribes.
Kazakhstan umpire Kirill Parfenov was reportedly banned from the sport in February 2015 for contacting another official on social media to organise match-fixing.
Croat umpire Denis Pitner was also booted out of the sport last August after it emerged he had a gambling account which was being used to place bets on tennis matches.
The International Tennis Federation (ITF) failed to release details on either incident, which again calls into question the transparency of the organisation, something that was repeatedly championed as one of its key traits despite concerns there had been cover-ups of previous match-fixing incidents.
Four other officials are under investigation and facing life bans from the game following alleged corruption on the ITF’s Futures Tour.
Last month, corruption expert Declan Hill told The42 that “tennis was the easiest sport to fix” and that match-fixing has been a “systemic problem for years”.
