For breaking its betting rules, the International Tennis Integrity Agency has suspended Italian tennis player Andrea Rita from playing for 15 months.
Rita has admitted four violations of the ITIA Tennis Anti-Corruption Programme. These betting violations, according to the ITIA, took place from 2018 through 2020.
The violations included incidents involving betting on tennis matches, and failures to report corrupt approaches. The TACP rules are violated by both.
Rita is banned from professional tennis for the period 26 January 2024 to 25 April 2020. This ban includes both participating in or attending ITIA member and national association sanctioned events as well as playing.
Rita was also fined an additional $5,000 ($4,616, PS3,945/EUR4,616). $4,000 of that amount is suspended.
ITIA continues to face corruption in the tennis world
Rita has been banned from tennis as part of the ITIA’s efforts to combat corruption.
Maxence Broville, a Frenchman, was suspended for seven years earlier this month. He was banned after refusing to cooperate with an investigation into anti-corruption.
But it’s not only players who are causing problems for ITIA. The ITIA has suspended Damjan Dejanovic, a Bosnian official in connection with pending charges of corruption. ITIA has also suspended Bulgarian official Stefan Milanov from his position for 16 years due to corruption charges.
ITIA’s focus has been on a Belgian match-fixing criminal case. The ITIA worked with Belgian authorities to secure a prison sentence of five years for Grigor Sargsyan, the syndicate’s leader.
During Sargsyan’s conviction, in November of last year, 16 initial players were sanctioned. More players have been sanctioned since then.
French player Leny Mitjanam has been banned from playing for a period of 10 years following his conviction on corruption and match fixing charges. Anis Ghorbel, a Tunisian footballer, was banned from playing for three years after he fixed matches between 2016 and 2017.
