The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) has fined the All England Lawn Tennis Club and the British Tennis Association a total of $1 million for unilaterally banning Russian and Belarusian players from this year's Wimbledon, the Daily Mail and other media reported yesterday.
Russian and Belarusian players were banned this summer at three UK tournaments - Nottingham, Birmingham and Eastbourne - and Wimbledon. The first three tournaments are under the auspices of the WTA, which operates or is managed in the UK by the British Tennis Association. Wimbledon is managed and run by the All England Lawn Tennis Club, which has a partnership with the WTA.
The WTA is reported to have fined the British Tennis Association $750,000 and the All England Lawn Tennis Club $250,000, for a total of $1 million.
The $1 million is not a fine, to be precise, but should be seen as a claim by the WTA against the two biggest British tennis organisations. Because the WTA and the two tennis organizations are not affiliated, but signed a contractual agreement between party A and Party B. The WTA's claim of $1 million is essentially compensation or liquidated damages for breach of the terms of the contractual agreement.
Of the WTA's claim, Sally Bolton, chief executive of the All England Lawn Tennis Club, said on Monday, "We are deeply disappointed by the WTA's actions and there are legal processes involved so I can't comment specifically on that."
Bolton added, "We are separate organizations from the UTA, so the WTA has filed a separate claim and we are dealing with it separately. However, we stand by our decision [to ban Russian and Belarus players] after a long time of reflection, which is a very difficult and challenging decision. This decision was not taken lightly, it was absolutely the right decision."
Bolton also revealed that the All England Lawn Tennis Club is seeking legal action against the WTA's claim and has not ruled out a court challenge. As for whether the ATP, the governing body for men's professional tennis, would follow the WTA's lead with a claim, "we're still waiting to hear from them."
The all England lawn tennis club announced in April, according to the British government's guidance, this year will not be allowed to athletes from Russia and belarus to wimbledon, which makes the man in the world rankings for the first and last year's us open champion medvedev and two-time Australian open women's singles champion, Aaron card players such as being left out of the list. At the same time, the British Tennis Association made a similar decision to Wimbledon, banning players from Russia and Belarus from three grass-court tournaments in the UK.
Later, the ATP and THE WTA decided unanimously to cancel this year's Wimbledon points, in order to counter the suspension. Confusingly, the two organisations did not remove points from the three British Tours of Nottingham, Birmingham and Eastbourne.
The WTA's $1 million claim is believed to be an attempt to recoup some of the players' losses from suspension. In general, sponsorship money is tied to a player's world ranking, and sponsorship deals typically state that when a player reaches a certain level of ranking (for example, breaking into the top 10 or 20 in the world), the sponsor will have to pay additional sponsorship money.
So, the logical sequence of events is: players are banned by the two major British tennis organizations, the WTA decides not to award points to players, and some players lose their prize money or points, resulting in real financial loss and potential loss of ranking, so someone should pay compensation. Clearly, the all England Lawn Tennis Club and the British Tennis Association, which started the affair, should stump up the money.
Britain's two biggest tennis organisations have not yet agreed to pay the money, but discussions have begun about how it should be spent, with the initial plan to use the money to boost the accounts of players' bonus and appearance fees, to be allocated to the players in the future according to the rules.