ITIA bans Dominican Republic tennis chair umpire for life

The independent body established to safeguard the integrity of tennis, the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), announced a new sanction last week. The agency confirmed Thursday that it imposed a lifetime ban against Fabián Carrero, a tennis chair umpire from the Dominican Republic.

An investigation of the ITIA uncovered multiple breaches of the Tennis Anti-Corruption Program (TACP) that occurred in November, as well as December 2019. Overall, according to the Agency, Carrero breached the TACP rules within eight matches, committing a total of 16 breaches.

The breaches involved the tennis umpire manipulating "the match scoring in their handheld device to facilitate guaranteed betting wins on specific points in matches at ITF M15 tournaments," a statement released by the ITIA explains. The case against Carrero was heard by Ian Mill, KC, an independent Anti-Corruption Hearing Officer, who concluded that the tennis chair umpire breached the TACP regulations on 16 different occasions.

The ITIA said that the Dominican chair umpire breached two clauses of the 2019 TACP rules within eight matches, including D.1.d which reads "No Covered Person shall, directly or indirectly, contrive, attempt to contrive, agree to contrive, or conspire to contrive the outcome, or any other aspect, of any Event."

Additionally, Carrero also breached clause D.2.b.i, which reads: "In the event any Related Person or Tournament Support Person is approached by any person who offers or provides any type of money, benefit or Consideration to a Related Person or Tournament Support Person to (i) influence or attempt to influence the outcome of any aspect of any Event, or (ii) provide Inside Information, it shall be the Related Person’s or Tournament Support Person’s obligation to report such incident to the TIU (now ITIA) as soon as possible."

Recently, the ITIA issued a provisional suspension for two professional players after uncovering they "collectively breached various TACP rules which included contriving aspects of matches, wagering, facilitating wagering, courtsiding, conspiracy and failing to report corrupt approaches." One of the suspensions was against Alexandra Riley, a US player, while the other one was against Slovenian player Nastja Kolar.

Before that, back in February, the ITIA issued a lifetime ban for a Moroccan tennis player. Back then, the Agency said it uncovered a record 135 match-fixing offenses completed by Younes Rachidi, a former tennis player from Morocco. In addition to the lifetime ban from the sport, the ITIA issued a hefty fine of $34,000.

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