Thursday 23 February 2017

'INTERESTING THOUGHTS FROM FED'

In regards to the last post, the comments from Roger Federer were I thought interesting to say the least. 
The great man believes that if every player were to be offered a mil at every tournament it would not necessarily mean that the match fixing would go away, I am not so sure about that.
If 'Alberto- Ramolis- Santiago- Sanchez' from an obscure South American Country was earning those sorts of dollars then surely he would not be interested in taking a bribe from 'Jonny Bloggs' the con man match fixing guru who makes all of his annual salary from his filthy habit. Why Roger wouldn't it go away ?
The smaller players in the smaller events are being targeted because they make peanuts from tennis and Billy Bloggs knows that to be a fact and he will only look at higher ranked players if they are known to be a little 'dodgey' with their book keeping. Guys ranked in the top 50 make big bucks, that's a fact, everyone knows that so I would be surprised if Billy even went near them. It's the guys ranked outside the 50 that are in need of a few extra dollars, the statistics prove just that.
The problem is simple, there are only a slight percentage of tennis pros who are actually making any profit, the rest are simply turning over funds to make it to the next tournament so if Billy approaches a player who he knows is not making enough to make ends meet then why wouldn't that player consider it ? 
Ethics ? Ha, that's funny, when you are scratching around trying to find enough Euros to take a train to Milan to fight it out in the qualification event to lose first round and pick up around $250 Euros for the 'privilege' of it all, well you can stick your ethics fair up ya bum.....
Roger Federer probably has never been approached by someone asking him to throw a set or a game or two because he was a superstar almost from the beginning and since he has started playing the prize money has escalated to such an extent that the first round losers in a Slam go away with $50,000. From memory, my hero Mats Wilander picked up around $60,000 for winning the French Open in 1982. Puts it into perspective. 
Does the winner of a Slam really require nearly 4 mil ? Oh please, a win in a Slam will guarantee you double that in endorsements in a short time frame. You will have people knocking on your door at all hours just looking for your signature for some clothing brand, a car perhaps or even a kids toy that looks and sounds like you with the switch of a button. 
A win in a Slam will belittle any pay cheque you will ever get yet for some reason sponsors want to see the winner with an amount of cash that would feed 55 starving young tennis professionals battling it out in Mexico who sleep in foyers in hotels cos they can't afford a bed.
Pardon me for repeating myself but the next Novak is indeed sliding around somewhere in a clay court event in South America and he will probably never even get to that sort of status because he will either run out of money before he reaches his potential or he will get suspended for taking a bribe all because he couldn't afford to fund his dream.
The ATP does not do enough to help struggling tennis pros because it keeps making the rich even richer and is obsessed with immortalizing the already immortals.
Look after the future of the sport, for f... sake, it's not too hard to see that currently it doesn't seem to be on the list of 'things to do' for those who are supposedly in charge of World Tennis....... 

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