$1.4 Million Fund Concealment Throws Lawn Tennis Association Under Intense Criticism

The Lawn Tennis Association is a nonprofit organization. All the revenue that tournaments garner for the association goes into improving the facilities and extending the reach of the sport. However, when the pandemic hit the world, LTA suffered huge losses in terms of revenue as the crowd in the events was reduced to a bare minimum.

Therefore, to withstand the financial crisis, LTA arranged funding from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. Also, they received a sum from the Wimbledon. Which, due to a contract that runs till 2053, pays LTA 90 percent of the revenue generated by the championship every year. Thus, LTA survived the rough times. Though now after two years it is being dragged for delaying the repayment.

The allegations on Lawn Tennis Association and its response

Recently, the Taxpayers Alliance demanded a settlement from LTA. Chief executive John OConnell said, “Recipients should bear in mind this money ultimately came from taxpayers. Brits will likely look positively on companies who were able to return funds.”

To which LTA’s spokesperson responded, “During the last two years, we made significant losses. And many colleagues were unable to work due to all tennis courts being closed. We cut back our expenditure across the whole organization and ran out events at a significant loss.”

Thereafter, he added, “Despite this, we gave Covid emergency grants totalling £5m to the tennis community and further loans of £2.4m far outweighing money received from the furlough scheme.”

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Further, the LTA is accused of not paying a sum of £1.2million. The funding from Wimbledon has helped the association with a reserve of £30 million and a sum of £42 million came from their charitable foundation.

What is the current situation of the Wimbledon Championship?

Around a month ago, the Wimbledon championship suffered severe backlash because of the ban they imposed on Russian and Belarusian players. However, the organizers decided to stay firm on their word and brought counteractions upon themselves.

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ATP, as a response to Wimbledon’s sternness, stripped the tournament off the rankling point. Also, other tournaments hosted by All England suffered the same fate. Therefore, in the current scenario, the tournament will commence. But will offer no raking points and will not act host to concerned nations. The event will start from June 27th, and the finals will be played on July 11th.