As you all know by now, Andy Murray said in a recent BBC radio interview that “everyone knows it [match-fixing] goes on”, and the repercussions haven't died down yet. First, Rafael Nadal met with Murray and denounced the broad, general comment (Rafa insisted he is not part of that "everyone" whom Murray cited), and Murray is also scheduled to meet with ATP chief Etienne de Villiers later this week to explain the remark.
Some comment posters, most notably TW regular Todd and in Charge, took umbrage at my suggestion that the ATP (including the players) should have circled the wagons and developed a strategy for dealing with the gambling in tennis issue when news that triggered the crisis came out of Sopot, Poland. I felt that the ATP should have adopted the attitude that this is an "internal affairs" matter, and embraced an informal, self-imposed gag rule because of the critically sensitive nature of subject.
Instead, the ATP launched an "investigation." Meanwhile, any time a player wanted to come forward to relate experiences or disseminate rumors about potential match-fixing, the media was ready to jump all over the story. Frustrated celebrities and other stymied attention seekers take note: You want headlines, just call the press and tell them you want to reveal some (attempted) match-fixing incident on the ATP Tour.
So instead of exercising preventive damage-control (which was my suggestion) the ATP flew by the seat of pants and - poof! - it all blew up with Murray's remarks. So now the drill is post-disaster damage control. And don't for a moment think that Murray's meetings with Nadal and deVilliers, as well has his own furious backpedaling (when embarassed, just claim that your remarks were "taken out of context" or, preferably, you were "misquoted"), are anything but an attempt at damage control. If you're going to resort to damage control, why not do it before the damage gets worse?
Alright - the problem isn't that Murray, either in or out of context, misrepresented the reality of match-fixing in men's tennis (at least at the lower levels of the game). I'm sure he meant exactly what he said, because you would have to be a charter member of the Flat-Earth Society to deny that tennis has a problem. The real issue is, how big a problem is it, how do you fix it and, meanwhile, how do you portray the nature of the problem in the public forum?
The problem is that Murray's loose-lips both maintained and advanced the scandal and the general impression that "tennis" (meaning the ATP Tour and Grand Slams) has a gambling problem. Is it really worth it, on some vague and largely sentimental grounds of free speech? I know Todd and others see the players as potential whistle-blowers, and believe that their access to the press somehow can serve to keep the ATP honest. But in this case (as opposed to, say, an issue like under-the-table appearance fees), it's impossible to imagine that the ATP would actively ignore or try to sweep the problem under the rug. Some people believe that preventive damage-control efforts are really a form of censorship. I just don't happen to be one of them, when something like a gag-rule is self-imposed and voluntary. Sometimes, control of the message is critically important.
So what do we have here, at the end of the day? Murray makes some poorly considered and widely broadcast remarks, casting further doubts on the integrity of the game. A few days later, the Lords of Tennis issue this terse and oddly "no-news" news release:
I support the idea that tennis ought to have an anti-corruption wing although I don't admire the way the promise to develop one has come along. This is a vivid example of how the Lords are still trying to catch up to the story, rather than get ahead of it - that is, it illustrates exactly what I meant when I suggested that the ATP at-large ought to have taken a really disciplined approach to how it conducts the dialogue about gambling, especially in public. It should have done far more to control the message.
By the way, it isn't as if more rigorous policing is going to solve this problem, either - just check out the the thoughts of some bookmakers on that subject. It's funny, but just this morning I read a small item in the front of the New York Post about disgraced rogue NBA referee Tim Donaghy, who has struck a plea-deal with federal authorities over charges (since admitted) that he bet on games that he officiated, which is as close to game-fixing as you can come. I'm not a big NBA fan, but the fact that I've heard so little about this scandal makes me think that the NBA handled it well. The league prevented the fire from becoming a conflagration, on which everyone from players to team officials kept throwing gasoline.
