SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Mexican tennis player Carlos Ramirez Utermann has been banned by the International Tennis Integrity Association (ITIA) after breaching official betting regulations.
The player has been prohibited from playing tennis for a total of one year and 10 months, whilst also facing a fine of $2,000 and a suspended penalty of $8,000, with the latter dependent on any other criminal actions.
As a result of the sanctions, he will be unable to compete in or attend any tennis event authorised or sanctioned by any international tennis governing body or national association until 11 September 2023, with the ban considered to have begun on 12 November 2021.
The two requirements of the Tennis Anti-Corruption Programme (TACP) which Utermann was found to have breached were Section D.1.d of the 2018 TACP and Section D.2.a.1 of the 2015, 2017 and 2018 TACPs.
The first prohibits any ‘covered person’ from directly or indirectly contrive or attempting to contribute any aspect of an event, whilst the second requires players to report incidents to the TIU if they are offered money, benefits or considerations in order to influence the outcome of a match.
Uterman had a career high ATP ranking of 1021, and was found to have fixed the outcome or other aspects of matches and failed to report corrupt approaches to the ITIA across matches in 2015, 2017 and 2018.
The ITIA was first established at the start of this year, following recommendations by the Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) following an independent report into match fixing and athlete corruption in 2018.
Its website was launched in January by the global governing bodies of tennis, in a bid to improve communication, information and engagement between all stakeholders protecting integrity across all levels of the sport.
