Boris Becker jailed and could be deported afterwards

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BBC:

Boris Becker jailed: Tennis champion sentenced over bankruptcy

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-61276378

'Judge Deborah Taylor said he had shown no remorse or acceptance of guilt.

Referring to Becker's previous conviction for tax evasion in Germany in 2002, she told the former world number one: "You did not heed the warning you were given and the chance you were given by the suspended sentence and that is a significant aggravating factor..."'

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J. White:

How ‘Boris the Bomber’ crashed and burned after a life of ducking and diving

"Despite his insistent bravado, the highest position Becker ever registered was 40th. He may have fancied himself as a hotshot, but the hard truth was, at poker, he was an also-ran.

And that, according to those who know him best, is typical of Becker.

“I can describe Boris very quickly,” his former coach Nick Bollettieri once said. “He knew a lot. What he didn’t know, he thought he knew, and he would intimidate people into thinking that he knew it.”

Being not quite as clever as he thinks himself to be is part of the reason Becker, 54, found himself ... heading to prison to begin a two-and-a-half year sentence, after being found guilty on April 8 at Southwark Crown Court of four charges under the Insolvency Act.
...

How had it come to this? How had the man who accrued more than £38 million in prize money and sponsorship on the tennis tour, then enjoyed a lucrative second career as television pundit and hugely successful coach, ended up in such a financial mess? What on earth possessed him to think he could get away with it?

The answer was there for anyone who has watched Becker play poker. He believed he could bluff his way through it. The trouble is, when it comes to bluffing, Boris Becker is no champion. As his ex-wife Barbara’s lawyer Samuel Burstyn put it during their protracted divorce case: “If Boris had more than just charm and balls, he’d really be dangerous.”
...

Becker would often stay there after the divorce to visit his children, still on friendly terms with his ex.

“Nobody falls out with Boris for long,” says one of his many old friends. “You can’t help forgiving him.”
...

His second marriage, with Lilly Kerssenberg, the mother of his son Amadeus, collapsed amid accusations of infidelity. As one of his many friends puts it: “Boris doesn’t like to play by the rules.”
...

He lived by different rules. Now finally his bluff has been called."

(Telegraph, London)

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Boris Becker facing deportation in prison for foreign criminals

"Disgraced tennis champion Boris Becker faces deportation from the UK as early as next year after being transferred to a prison used to lock up foreign criminals.

The three-time Wimbledon winner was reportedly moved to the lower security HMP Huntercombe in the Oxfordshire countryside from Wandsworth prison, which was two miles away from Centre Court where he burst onto the tennis scene winning the tournament aged just 17."

(Evening Standard)

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Boris Becker: Former Wimbledon champion released after serving eight months of prison sentence

15 December 2022

https://www.bbc.com/sport/tennis/63987543

'The 55-year-old German was jailed for two and a half years in April after being found guilty of four charges under the Insolvency Act.

He was released from prison on Thursday morning and has flown to Germany.

The BBC understands Becker has been deported from the United Kingdom.
...

A Home Office spokesperson told BBC Sport: "Any foreign national who is convicted of a crime and given a prison sentence is considered for deportation at the earliest opportunity."

Becker qualifies for automatic deportation as a foreign national who does not have British citizenship and received a custodial sentence of more than 12 months.'

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Boris Becker: ‘I’m still in the game. Just have to play better’

Henry Mance, February 25 2023

https://www.ft.com/content/54eb0edb-aa51-4ac1-8451-c356ee217f05

'We park outside Eurosport’s nondescript studios. The 55-year-old grips the banister as he slowly climbs the stairs. His left knee, worn by years of big serving, is now metal. So are both his hips and his right ankle. Going through an airport scanner means “a lot of noise”. He shrugs: his body felt worse a decade ago.
...

In April 2022, he was sentenced to two and a half years. He’d been unable to repay a €3.5mn loan. A jury found that he breached bankruptcy rules four times, notably by failing to declare that he owned the house where his mother lives and by making personal payments of €427,000 from a business account.
...

He had messed up before — a tax fine in Germany; a child conceived while his then wife was pregnant and in hospital; a divorce from said wife; a farcical attempt to become a diplomat for the Central African Republic.
...

Then came a reprieve. In late 2022, with British prisons full to bursting, Becker was slated for deportation and early release. He flew back to Germany on a friend’s private jet.
...

The judge who sentenced Becker said he had shown “no remorse” and “no humility”. Becker now has a different tone. “I’m very aware that I’ve been given a second chance.” He is “humbled” that Eurosport, Puma and other partners have stuck with him.
...

Sympathy for Becker abounded. Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp wanted to visit him, but the prison feared for his safety. Djokovic gave Becker’s partner Lilian Monteiro and children free tickets to his matches. There were dozens of handwritten letters, including a three-pager from Michael Stich, Becker’s longtime German rival.
...

Religion helped Becker, too. “Inside I became much more religious, and it really holds you. Because inside it’s very easy to become a criminal.” Bible studies on Friday afternoon were a “highlight”. It was “very religious, but not in a weird way”.
...

He had idolised Marlon Brando and James Dean and longed to escape his domineering father. After finding success, he found women, too — and lost focus.
...

He should leave bankruptcy this year, although he is around £400,000 behind on the agreed payments to the trustee. “Do I start to make money? Yes.” His new advisers “see that the brand Boris Becker is probably hotter now than it’s been for a long, long time.”
...

He can apply for permission to enter the UK, but says he’s worried about being sent back to prison. ... I wonder if his real fear is being shunned by the All England Club. He insists: “Prison life is a shit life, and I don’t want to go back.”
...

“The jurors . . . half of them were under 30, I don’t think they truly understood what this case was really about.”
...

I have now been with Becker, on and off, for eight hours. He is easier to talk to than almost any other celebrity I’ve met. He seems kind and unguarded. But he is also elusive. On court, he hated losing. If he is viscerally pained by his recent defeats, he hides it well. “Acceptance, acceptance, acceptance.”

Celebrity culture breeds redemption stories: tearful remorse. But it strikes me that tennis has taught Becker another option: redemption by amnesia.'

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So Boris has somethin' in common with a fella on Nick's!!


I'd like to know exactly what the deportation laws are. Maybe Boris doesn't want to coach again, but if he does, he really needs to be able to re-enter the UK. No player will want him coaching them at Wimbledon via Zoom!

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Two-time major champ Angel Cabrera (US Open 2007, Masters 2009) is still in jail:

'Initially imprisoned for assaulting, threatening and harassing a former partner between 2016 and 2018, local agencies reported he was sentenced to an additional two years and four months jail time late last year for assaulting another former girlfriend.

Cabrera has admitted he struggled with alcoholism in the years after his Masters duel with Scott, a far cry from his seemingly genial nature on the course, which included asking his son to be his caddie in the 2013 Masters.

Even still, he has told friends his intention is to resume his golf career once he’s released.'

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/golf/from-green-jacket-to-prison-scrubs-but-angel-cabrera-wants-to-resume-golf-career-20230330-p5cwku.html


'"Many say prison is bad, but it's not the case, prison has done me good," Cabrera said during the trial, according to local press.'

https://www.golfchannel.com/news/angel-cabrera-convicted-another-assault-will-serve-additional-28-months-jail

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‘Brutal monomaniac’: the gripping film about Boris Becker’s astonishing rise and spectacular fall

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/apr/03/boris-becker-alex-gibney-oscar-boom-boom

'In 2018, the Oscar-winning film-maker Alex Gibney – a keen player himself – began preparing a documentary on Becker’s colourful life and times. He envisaged the film as a celebration, a rollicking portrait of a sporting giant. But events intruded, the law intervened and his picture took a more dramatic route.
...

Fittingly, Gibney’s finished film, Boom! Boom! The World vs Boris Becker, arrives in two parts. The first, Triumph, spotlights Becker’s tennis heroics, charting his career-defining rivalries with the likes of Andre Agassi, Stefan Edberg and Ivan Lendl. But the second, Disaster, unfolds as grisly low comedy. It tackles his divorces, his paternity battles and the financial sharp practice that would finally land him in jail.
...

But the film that Boom! Boom!’ most resembles is The Armstrong Lie, his 2013 portrait of the cyclist Lance Armstrong, who was hailed for rebounding from testicular cancer only to be caught doping and subsequently stripped of his titles. Both films feature a charismatic, articulate athlete whose story doesn’t entirely add up.

“Yes, but I think this is different from,” Gibney cautions. “Lance Armstrong prosecuted a lie in order to make himself more money. And that’s not really what Boris is doing. It’s more that he’s exaggerating the good parts while diminishing the parts of himself that are less flattering, just as we all do.”
...

The film shows his unseemly slide from the summit. His Mallorcan finca is overrun by hippie squatters. His diplomatic passport (which was meant to safeguard him against bankruptcy proceedings) turns out to be fake. He is befuddled and exhausted; the passport is the final straw. “I said, ‘God, why me?’” he complains to the director. “Why me again?”
...

Whatever his issues with the film, Becker duly showed up for its premiere in Berlin. ... “Look, it’s very difficult to win Wimbledon at 17,” he explained. “You have to be a little bit crazy, borderline crossing the line, doing things nobody has ever done before in order to achieve what nobody has ever achieved before. You expect world champions to be like everybody else? Well, we are different.” It was a gallant defence. It was also baloney. Becker sounded as if he were making a case for moral exceptionalism, somehow equating historic tax fraud with an audacious dive volley.'

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Boris Becker: The Rise and Fall

Director: Stephen Finnigan
Includes: Pat Cash, Tim Mayotte, Sharlely Becker, Gunther Bosch, Rolf Hauschild

In this doco, Lilly Becker says BB hid horses in his Majorca bedroom. She says he hadn't paid his taxes on them.

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S. Briggs:

Why Boris Becker has been banned from Wimbledon

'Boris Becker says he is returning to the tennis tour as the coach of spiky young Danish player Holger Rune...

It is not clear how long it will be before Becker is allowed to return to the UK, but post-conviction travel bans can last for a decade and it is understood that Becker’s deportation order would last for 10 years, because his sentence was fewer than four, unless revoked for ‘exceptional circumstances’. Certainly, Rune would not be able to bring Becker with him for next summer’s grasscourt tournaments at Queen’s Club or Wimbledon.
...

But Rune’s coaching situation has been complicated for some time. He had an association with Patrick Mouratoglou, formerly Serena Williams’s coach, between last October and April – but it was never quite clear whether he was working primarily with Mouratoglou or with fellow Dane Lars Christensen.
...

This will be Becker’s first coaching role since he worked with Novak Djokovic between 2013 and 2016 – a period that found Djokovic landing six major titles and racking up 122 weeks as world No 1.

As with Mouratoglou and Rune, this wasn’t a nuts-and-bolts technical role. Becker offered broad-spectrum guidance while – for most of their time together – Slovakia’s Marian Vajda led the on-court sessions.
...

Becker was a big part of the “supercoach” trend that Andy Murray began by hiring Ivan Lendl at the end of 2011. Lendl has since returned for a third stint with Murray – again, in a relatively remote capacity – while Djokovic now employs former Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic, and Rafael Nadal is coached by former world No.1 Carlos Moya.

Yet none of these names can compete with Becker’s stature in the game – nor his chequered and complicated life story.

His return to the tour confirms that – as far as the tennis world is concerned – Becker’s penalty for tax evasion ended on the day of his release.'

(Telegraph, London)


["None of these names can compete"?? Huh?? Lendl???]