Ted Forstmann Is Pete Rose of Tennis

Filed under: FanHouse Exclusive

The pattern is repeating. An insider in the sports world bets heavily, excessively, dangerously on the game, and after it comes out, he downplays it, then justifies, then says he doesn't do it anymore.

And the whole way, the credibility of sport is jeopardized.

"If you go back and look at the history of Pete Rose, he started by saying he's not gambling, he never gambled,'' said Arnie Wexler, a leading expert on excessive and compulsive gambling. "Compulsive gamblers are great liars.''

The thing is, I wasn't asking him about Pete Rose. The topic was Ted Forstmann, the CEO of IMG, and one of the most powerful men in sports. Forstmann is at the center of a sports gambling scandal that is connected with tennis, but also with most other major sports.

Forstmann definitely bet on sports, as his own vice president has told me he has admitted to making a $40,000 bet on the 2007 French Open final between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, both IMG clients. He also is accused in a lawsuit of calling Federer before the match to get inside information. Forstmann and Federer have denied that.

When talking details about Forstmann, though, Wexler is the one who kept making connections, kept bringing up Rose.

Forstmann is tennis' Pete Rose.

"He's trying to make a fool out of everybody,'' Wexler said.

And several sports governing bodies are simply buying into Forstmann's extremely hard-to-believe claims that his sports betting was all in the past. Nothing would make tennis happier than to believe that, so the sport closes its eyes really tight and wishes really, really hard.

But at the same time that he claims to have stopped, he also defends it by saying there was nothing wrong with it. So which is it?

Tennis isn't the only sport trying to play pretend here. Forstmann also is alleged to have bet heavily on NCAA basketball and football, Major League Baseball and the NFL. He also has admitted to betting on golf.

 

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Source: http://tennis.fanhouse.com/2011/01/10/ted-forstmann-is-pete-rose-of-tennis/

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