McEnroe: ‘Russian mafia could be involved’

John McEnroe has expressed his concern that organised crime, such as the Russian mafia, could have threatened tennis players or their families with violence to force them into throwing matches.

	Alarmed: McEnroe fears organised criminals maybe targeting tennis

“The thing that worries me is that mafia types, like the Russian mafia, could be involved. That’s potentially pretty dark and scary,” the New Yorker told The Daily Telegraph.

“I think that’s the side that people aren’t really looking at with these match-fixing stories. Someone may have threatened the players, and they are put in a situation. I’m guessing that could happen. That would make more sense to me than top players throwing a match for money.

“Throwing a match for money would be stupid, as you would be risking losing what you’ve worked for your whole life. It seems crazy that players would take that risk for money. It would make more sense that they’ve been threatened in some way and that’s why they’re doing it.”

McEnroe indicated it would be very simple to corrupt the outcome of a tennis match. “The easiest situation for throwing matches would be in a one-on-one sport like tennis or boxing. You just need one person,” suggested McEnroe, who is in London this week and appearing at the BlackRock Masters in the Royal Albert Hall.

But some of the lesser players in men’s tennis could be tempted by bribe money, McEnroe said, and possibly would not need to be coerced by mafia threats.

“I think this issue has to be closely looked at, because it’s very conceivable that it’s happening. There are guys out there who are 100 in the world, 200 in the world, and they’re making £50,000 a year. And if someone says that they’ll give you £50,000, so your entire year’s money, I think there’s a strong possibility that they have taken the money, without a doubt,” McEnroe said.

“There is definitely temptation for people. It’s becoming more of a drama because there’s more money in sports.”

McEnroe does not think that any of the leading players, such as Nikolay Davydenko, would be tempted to take a bung. The Russian world No 4 is being investigated by the ATP after a defeat in Poland in August, as the match had attracted suspicious patterns on Betfair, the peer-to-peer betting exchange.

“With a high-ranked guy like Davydenko, he’s making so much money to begin with that he’d be risking so much by doing it, as if you get caught you should be banned for life,” McEnroe said. “But it’s pretty tough to prove that someone has thrown a match unless you’re tapping the guy’s phone or something.”

The gambling world frightens McEnroe. “I think gambling is a big problem and not just for the tennis players. It’s a problem for society in general. I just picture these people somewhere in Las Vegas, or wherever they are, shouting to their kids that they will be right back, ‘I’m just going to win my week’s salary back’, and then losing everything. There are people losing everything. It’s an addiction, and there are other people encouraging it,” McEnroe said.

“It’s easy to get online and make a bet. People think they are going to win it back, ‘I’ll double that. Oh, OK, I’ll double that’. It’s more of a problem for society in general, but because sports are up there, there’s more attention.

“People are betting on things they don’t even give a rat’s ass about, and I think that’s sad, personally.

“I’ve gotten away from it. I have never liked losing. I’ve been lucky to make all this money, and I would freak out at losing 100 bucks. I can’t imagine what it does to all these people when they’re losing all their money.”

This has been a year of controversies for tennis, with Martina Hingis testing positive for cocaine at Wimbledon and allegations, later disproved, that Germany’s Tommy Haas was poisoned during September’s Davis Cup semi-final against Russia in Moscow.

But McEnroe indicated that the ‘Season of Scandals’ in tennis could actually help the sport if the authorities make the most of the attention.

“In a way, you could say that any press is good press. The fact that people are taking a closer look, that will, hopefully, end up being a good thing because, as far as I’m concerned, there haven’t been enough people giving tennis their attention. I like to think that we can use this to our advantage,” said McEnroe, who knows more than most about making controversy work to your advantage.

“Just the mere fact that people are taking a closer look, hopefully, people will realise that this is a great sport. We should also use this attention to crack down on any problems.”

And McEnroe is worried that those problems could include mafia threats to tennis players.

ESPN to enter Premier League bidding

Satellite broadcaster BSkyB faces another rival at the negotiating table when the rights to England’s Premier League football come up for auction in 2009.

ESPN, the US cable sports network controlled by Walt Disney, is keen to join the bidders vying to screen top matches featuring Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool and vows its attempt will be anything but Mickey Mouse.

George Bodenheimer, the ESPN president, believes that the Premier League rights, which he regards as a “fabulous property”, would underpin the group’s global expansion. “When the rights come up for renewal in 2009, we would definitely like to be at the table,” said an ESPN spokesman. “We’re very interested.”

BSkyB last year agreed to pay £1.3bn to screen 92 live matches a season, including the top Sunday afternoon fixtures, for the three years beginning August 2007.

For the first time Sky’s monopoly on the Premiership was broken, with Irish broadcaster Setanta Sports paying £392m to snap up 46 matches a year. The pair saw off competition from rivals thought to include NTL, since rebranded Virgin Media, and commercial broadcaster ITV.

ESPN, which broadcasts the NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball in America to 95m homes, is no stranger to what the locals call soccer. It already shows Major League Soccer, the US domestic league, where the arrival of David Beckham at LA Galaxy has boosted ratings.

Outside the US, ESPN already has its hands on some Premier League football. Some of its 34 networks, broadcasting to 194 countries in 16 languages, hold the overseas rights to England’s top football league.

These include rights across the Indian sub-continent and parts of Asia via its ESPN Star Sports operation – a joint venture with News Corporation, BSkyB’s 39.1pc controlling shareholder.

Under Mr Bodenheimer, ESPN is looking to bolster its non-US sports coverage, not least on the internet. Already the owner of Soccernet, one of the leading football websites, ESPN has recently added the Cricinfo cricket website and the rugby site Scrum.com.

In Europe, the group – 80pc owned by Disney and 20pc by Hearst Corporation – will shortly rebrand its North American Sports Network as ESPN. The network is currently in 10m European homes, including about 1m in the UK where it comes as part of the Setanta package.

Lara’s Champs register first win

Brian Lara’s Mumbai Champs grabbed their first win of the Indian Cricket League with a narrow seven-run victory against the Kolkata Tigers at the Tau Devi Lal Cricket Stadium in Chandigarh, in yesterday’s day/night 20/20 encounter.

Lara was not needed at the crease in his team’s innings of 187 that cost them just three wickets, Man-of-the-Match Shreyas Khanolkar registering one of two half-centuries for the Champs in their 20 overs.

The consolation win came as they then skittled the Tigers’ lower order to restrict them to 180 for nine when the overs ran out.

Former New Zealand all-rounder Nathan Astle led the bowling with three for 26 in his four overs.

The Champs, skippered by Lara, lost their previous encounter on Sunday against the Chandigarh Lions by 38 runs, after Astle’s countryman Chris Cairns blasted 70 in just 26 balls.

In his team’s chase of the Lions’ total of 219, Lara opened in a losing effort after scoring just nine runs, the Champs being out for 181.

Brief Scores:

Mumbai Champs – 187 runs for 3 wickets in 20 overs.

Batting: SN Khanolkar – 64 runs from 39 balls, Subhojit Paul – 50 runs from 41 balls.

Bowling: Lance Klusener – 2 wickets for 29 runs.

Kolkata Tigers: 180 runs for 9 wickets from 20 overs

Batting: AA Jhunjhunwala 32 runs from 22 balls

Bowling: Nathan Astle – 3 wickets for 26 runs