Two tennis players have been banned by the International Tennis Integrity Agency for corruption in connection with a Belgian syndicate.
Alejandro Mendoza Crespo has been banned from playing tennis forever by the ITIA for committing 20 offenses. Jorge Panta Herreros was suspended for three year for four infractions.
Richard McLaren, an independent hearing officer for anti-corruption cases, handed down the sanctions. The suspensions were imposed after an official hearing held in March.
Mendoza and Panta were also issued with fines of $250,000 (PS199,619/EUR231,942) and $10,000 respectively. Both will not be allowed to play, coach or attend any sanctioned event by ITIA, such as the ATP, WTA, and others.
The Tennis Anti-Corruption Programme’s (TACP) 35 violations led to the suspension of Eduardo Agustin Torre for five years. Torre also received a fine of $35,000.
ITIA sanctions for syndicate tennis banned
ITIA said that Mendoza’s and Panta’s suspensions were related to a recent Belgian criminal case, in which Grigor Sargsyan, the leader of a match-fixing syndicate was sentenced to five years behind bars.
Seven players received varying bans in November after the sentence. After they had been found guilty of violating the TACP, seven players were banned in November for varying durations.
All of the following were suspended: Alec Witmeur (Arnaud Greef), Arthur de Greef (Julien Dubail), Romain Barbosa Maxime Authom, Omar Salman and Maxime authom.
Two more bans were issued in relation to the Belgium incident earlier this year. French player Leny Mitjana has been suspended for ten years due to corruption. Anis Ghorbel is also prohibited for three years because of match-fixing.
With the bans on Mendoza, Panta and 25 other players and officials in relation to this case from Belgium.
IBIA’s Q1 Integrity Report Highlights Tennis Concerns
In April this year, the International Betting Integrity Association released their ‘Integrity report’ for the first quarter of 2018.
IBIA totaled 56 alerts in Q1 – a 12 percent increase over the 50 notifications received during Q1 of 2023. This was also a 64.7% increase on the last quarter of 2023.
In the first three months of this year, there were 14 tennis alerts. The number of notifications was higher than the twelve that were sent during the first quarter of last year.
