Tennis player Quentin Folliot has been banned from the sport for 20 years, with the International Tennis Integrity Agency (IGIA) claiming he fixed at least 11 matches between 2022 and 2024.
Folliot reached a career high ranking of No. 488 in August 2022 and had career earnings of just over $60,000. He seemingly decided that throwing matches would be a more profitable career and began to fix matches in May 2022.
In a statement announcing his ban, the IGIA said he is now prohibited from playing in, coaching at, or attending any tennis event for the next 20 years. In addition, the IGIA fined the 26-year-old $70,000 and ordered him to repay corrupt payments totaling more than $44,000.
Folliot is the sixth player to be sanctioned as a result of the investigation, following the cases of Jaimee Floyd-Angele, Paul Valsecchi, Luc Fomba, Lucas Bouquet, and Enzo Rimoli.
It has not yet been revealed whether any of these players have been arrested on criminal charges in a wide-reaching international betting scandal. The names of those arrested have not been made public, but investigators have revealed that five French tennis players are facing prosecution.
Folliot Conspired With Doubles Partners
The IGIA detailed the 11 matches that Folliot was found to have fixed. Five were singles matches, and six were doubles. Some of the information was redacted in the IGIA release, but named doubles partners include Fomba, Bouquet, and Simon Ivanov.
He conspired with the players and, upon learning of the investigation, alerted the others. The IGIA noted that Angele and Bouquet deleted incriminating evidence from their phones.
In the written statement from the IGIA, Anti-Corruption Hearing Officer (AHO) Amani Khalifa said he is “a vector for a wider criminal syndicate, actively recruiting other players and attempting to embed corruption more deeply into the professional tours.”
Young Players Targeted
It is unclear who was wagering on the matches and whether any other criminal organizations were involved in the scheme. Another tennis player arrested for match fixing said he accepted bribery payments to maintain his lifestyle of playing on tour, as he was not earning enough prize money.
At the lower end of the pay scale, match fixing is far more common, and tennis is the sport with the second most incidents of match fixing, behind only soccer.
Commissioner General Stéphane Piallat, head of the French police’s racing and gambling investigations unit, said, “We’re talking about young, lower-ranked players who can be bought for not much, because they can’t make a living from the sport or because, at that age, it’s hard to resist the lure of easy money.”
While this is understandable, many have struggled to comprehend why athletes, such as Terry Rozier and Emmanuel Clase, who are paid millions of dollars, would involve themselves in fixing schemes for relatively low sums. It should be said that both players and others implicated in the related scandals have pleaded not guilty.
Dr. Timothy Fong, the co-director of the UCLA Gambling Studies Program, says that we should be asking, “Why wouldn’t they do it?” Many believe they will not get caught, and the reward of making fast, easy money means many will always be tempted.
In the age of smartphones and the internet, monitoring suspicious betting activity and messages between fixers has never been easier. While high-profile cases may lead to many questioning the integrity of sport, the safeguards in place are also making it easier for those who participate in fixing to be caught.
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Tennis player Quentin Folliot has been banned from the sport for 20 years, with the International Tennis Integrity Agency (IGIA) claiming he fixed at least 11 matches between 2022 and 2024. Folliot reached a career high ranking of No. 488 in August 2022 and had career earnings of just over $60,000. He seemingly decided that
The post Quentin Folliot Revealed as Tennis Match-Fixer, Banned for 20 Years appeared first on CasinoBeats.