The International Tennis Federation announced today that Uzbekistan tennis officials Sherzod Hasanov and Arkhip Molotyagin have been banned for life and had their ITF officiating certification permanently revoked after being found guilty of offences under the Code of Conduct for Officials. Following investigations by the Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU), Mr Hasanov and Mr Molotyagin were found guilty by an ITF Disciplinary Panel of charges, laid under the 2015 edition of the Code of Conduct for Officials, contrary to Articles A10, A13 and B1:

• Using a mobile phone to communicate scores of matches over which they were officiating to a third party at the ITF Futures event in Tiberias, Israel between 7-9 September 2015;
• Delaying the inputting of scores into their PDA device to allow the third party and/or other third parties to benefit by placing bets on matches in which they were officiating at the Tournament;
• Delaying the inputting of scores and/or fraudulently manipulating scores by inputting fictitious deuce games in to their PDA device while officiating at other ITF Futures events over a period of 7 months;
• That Mr Hasanov counselled or procured another official and/or officials to participate in the fraudulent manipulation of the ‘livescoring’ system on our around January 2015 including, but not limited to, Mr Molotyagin;
• Failing to report to the Joint Certification Programme the unlawful conduct of officials whom they knew to be fraudulently manipulating the ‘live scoring’ system.

The Panel imposed a life ban on Mr Hasanov and Mr Molotyagin with immediate effect, which means that their ITF officiating certification is permanently revoked, and they will no longer be able to officiate at events organised or sanctioned by the ITF, ATP and WTA or at Grand Slam tournaments. They will also be included on the non-accreditation list circulated to sports stakeholders.

The Code of Conduct for Officials applies to all Certified Officials working at ITF, ATP, WTA and Grand Slam events. The current Code is listed under the under the ITF Duties and Procedures for Officials and can be viewed online here.

• This media release was originally sent out via email by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) on 14 September 2016.