TIU reprimands two following corruption investigation

Two Bulgarian tennis players have been handed a ban and ‘significant fines’ after the Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) convicted them of ‘a number of corruption offences’.

Karen Khachatryan has been handed a lifetime ban from the sport and a fine of $250,000 while his brother, Yuri Khachatryan, has been banned for ten years and fined $50,000 following a TIU investigation and hearing.

Following an investigation by the TIU, Karen Khachatryan was found to have committed several breaches of the Tennis Anti-Corruption Programme, including: five cases of match fixing, nine cases of soliciting other players not to use best efforts and repeated failure to cooperate with the TIU investigation.

The TIU probe also established that Yuri Khachatryan was also responsible for breaches of the Tennis Anti-Corruption Programme, including: making corrupt approaches to a fellow professional player, delaying in complying with the TIU’s demands for information, providing devices with which he had tampered and provided false information, wagering on tennis and facilitating others’ gambling on tennis.

The duo were both found to be in breach of Section D of the Tennis Anti-Corruption Programme, which – among other things – forbids “solicit[ing] or facilitat[ing] any other person to wager” on tennis, “attempt[ing] to contrive the outcome” of a tennis match, soliciting a player to not use their best effort or offering a player money or benefits to not use their best efforts.

The players were also in violation of Section F of the programme, which says that players must cooperate with TIU investigations.