In a press release sent today, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) announced that Uzbekistan Tennis Officials Sherzod Hasanov and Arkhip Molotyagin have been put under life ban and their ITF officiating certification has been permanently revoked after being found guilty of offenses under the Code of Conduct for Officials.
In the investigations done by the Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU), Hasanov and Molotyagin were found guilty by an ITF Disciplinary Panel of charges, laid under the 2015 edition of the Code of Conduct for Officials, contrary to Articles A10, A13 and B1. Following charges, which were initially framed against the two officials, were found to be correct:
- Using a mobile phone to communicate scores of matches over which they were officiating to a third party at the ITF Futures event in Tiberias, Israel between 7-9 September 2015;
- Delaying the inputting of scores into their PDA device to allow the third party and/or other third parties to benefit by placing bets on matches in which they were officiating at the Tournament;
- Delaying the inputting of scores and/or fraudulently manipulating scores by inputting fictitious deuce games in to their PDA device while officiating at other ITF Futures events over a period of 7 months;
- That Mr Hasanov counselled or procured another official and/or officials to participate in the fraudulent manipulation of the ‘livescoring’ system on our around January 2015 including, but not limited to, Mr Molotyagin;
- Failing to report to the Joint Certification Programme the unlawful conduct of officials whom they knew to be fraudulently manipulating the ‘live scoring’ system.
As a result, a life ban on Mr Hasanov and Mr Molotyagin is imposed with immediate effect, which means that these two officials will no longer be able to officiate at events organised or sanctioned by the ITF, ATP and WTA or at Grand Slam tournaments. Also, Mr Hasanov and Mr Molotyagin will be included on the non-accreditation list circulated to sports stakeholders.
The ITF designed Code of Conduct applies to all Certified Officials working at ITF, ATP, WTA and Grand Slam events.