Egyptian Youssef Hossam has been banned from tennis for life after being found guilty of multiple match-fixing and other corruption offences, the Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) said on Monday.
The ban came two years after his brother was also permanently excluded from the sport on corruption charges.
A TIU investigation found that the 21-year-old had committed 21 breaches of anti-corruption rules between 2015 and 2019 and conspired with others to carry out a campaign of betting-related corruption at the lower levels of professional tennis.
The punishment was imposed by Jane Mulcahy QC, a senior English lawyer, following a three-day disciplinary hearing in London in March.
A TIU investigation revealed that in the four years from 2015-2019, Hossam “conspired with other parties to carry out an extensive campaign of betting-related corruption at the lower levels of professional tennis”.
These involved 21 breaches of tennis’ anti-corruption programme, including eight cases of match fixing.
He was also convicted for six cases of facilitating gambling, two of soliciting other players not to use best efforts, three failures to report corrupt approaches and two failures to co-operate with a TIU investigation.
Hossam, currently a lowly 810 in the ATP singles rankings, having reached a career high of 291 in December 2017, is now “permanently excluded from competing in or attending any sanctioned tennis event organised or recognised by the governing bodies of the sport”, the TIU statement said.
Life bans are comparatively rare in tennis but in 2018 Youssef’s brother, Karim Hossam, received such a suspension after being found guilty of 16 corruption charges that included providing inside information and facilitating betting.
While the likes of Roger Federer and Serena Williams are multi-millionaires, there have long been concerns that players in the lower levels of professional tennis are especially vulnerable to corruption given the relatively meagre prize money on offer in their tournaments.
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