2024-03-05 02:47:13
Last year, he sued the Czech Tennis Association and lost. Now Lukáš Rosol is watching from afar as the same people face accusations of subsidy fraud. In an interview with the daily Aktuálně.cz, the thirty-eight-year-old tennis player talked about the period when he faced bullying and revenge due to the criticism of the president of the union Ivo Kaderka, the instrument of which was subsidies for individual clubs.
What is your opinion on the current case of the tennis association? Based on your earlier statements, it seems that you are not surprised that this is the way it is, is it?
What is happening right now is of course a completely bad business card for Czech tennis, both locally and internationally. It is all the result of what has been bought here for several long years. In sports, one would expect fair play to be played and instead, cases are increasingly being dealt with regarding the redistribution of money and its misuse for the benefit of certain people. Of course, it would be premature to draw any conclusions and I don’t even want to get into it, but yes, unfortunately, I’m not really surprised.
What exactly is wrong in Czech tennis from your point of view?
That there are few people in the foreground whose main interest would be to really support tennis as such. As I actively move among the players, I listen to what is bothering them.
For example?
I don’t know many tennis players, defacto almost none, who could really rely on the support of the union and yet it is so essential. If a person wants to make a name for himself, then from baby tennis to at least eighteen years of age, it can easily cost a family several million crowns. You have to pay for coaches, facilities, rehabilitation, travel to tournaments, accommodation, and these are not small amounts. A lot of players and promising ones quit tennis early or go to university in America, where they get a scholarship, because they simply don’t have the money anymore, but they want to stay in tennis.
So what should change?
The system of general redistribution of finances should be adjusted so that the money gets to where it really should be and where it will be a benefit, not a revenue. From what I know from players from other countries, union support is essential there. The players have at their disposal teams of quality coaches who travel with them and that is of course much easier.
Even so, Czech tennis has many players among the world’s elite. You have already indicated that, in your opinion, the financial support of the players is largely up to the parents at first and that the union will eventually “come to a close”. Does any of your experience relate to this?
I am certainly speaking from my own experience. I myself have experienced that interest only started to come when I had established myself.
In response to the case, you wrote on Instagram: “I myself am dealing with the absolutely absurd consequences of speaking up. That I made it clear that I will not be intimidated or blackmailed by authoritative behavior without the possibility of decent communication.” Can you summarize those impacts and possibly give examples of authoritative action?
You know, I’ve already played my part. I have 21 active seasons. Basically, I had nothing to lose by coming forward, but I had no idea it would have such an absurd impact. When we look around, it is common practice for players to join the Davis Cup as captains or in other important roles after their active careers are over or at the end of their careers, because who else should do it if not the one who does he have many years of first-hand experience in this? Who better to teach players how to operate in such matches than someone who has been through it? Unfortunately, this is not the case with us, and I ask, isn’t it strange?
It is true that the captains of both national teams, Petr Pála and Jaroslav Navrátil, have been with the teams for many years, whether they are successful or not…
That for the last x years none of the former good players would be interested in establishing themselves within the Davis Cup, the association and the like? I expressed that interest based on the fact that I stopped tolerating the way we as players are treated, I wanted to improve the situation for future generations. The result of this is that I don’t have the opportunity to prepare and train in big clubs in the Czech Republic.
Are these the effects you were referring to?
Yes. There are several of those clubs and each time the same reason – if we let you train here, we risk losing our subsidies, and we can’t afford that. When I asked who ordered it, it was always from the union leadership. I believe that subsidies should be used for development, not as a tool to assert one’s own interests and take revenge. That seems really unheard of to me.
Your colleague Marek Gengel described to us the atmosphere of fear that prevailed in Czech tennis when he publicly defended you and clubs suddenly did not want to accept him, people preferred not to train with him. Did you perceive his situation?
We were in contact with Mark. We trained together where possible, in clubs that do not depend on support from the union, and we also went abroad. I was sorry that he got away with it too, that another free expression was punished. It was at this point that things started to take a really crazy turn. It was no longer a coincidence. It was bullying.
Your financial settlement case with the union even ended up in court. To sum it up, did you also feel that you were unpopular in the Czech tennis environment, or let’s say a kind of renegade with whom it is better to be very friendly?
He did not feel, on the contrary, I received so much support that it surprised me. I started getting different stories and personal experiences from people and they were thankful that finally someone spoke up, that people were starting to talk about what was going on.
In the aforementioned process, you requested compensation of 50 thousand dollars (roughly 1.2 million crowns) as compensation for your absence from the Davis Cup final tournament in 2021, from which Mr. Kaderka eliminated you just before the start. Why did you decide to judge in the end?
After the experiences I had during the few years of the national team, I said to myself that I no longer want to deal with this kind of people, not in this spirit. The dispute was not due to finances, but because I, as the oldest and most experienced member of the Davis Cup team, felt obliged to speak out against the way they treated us. For myself and for the sake of the young people who are newcomers or will be. I don’t want unfair practices to become the norm, that’s why I spoke out, and now in retrospect I’m glad I did, even though I had my fun with it.
In the end, you even lost the lawsuit…
Yes. After certain people made it known that they would arrange for me not to cut any more, and that subsequently started to happen, I realized that this is no longer about tennis and fair play. It’s one thing to voice your opinion and disagree with an approach, but it’s another thing to start retaliating. I wasn’t going to play this game of intimidation and threats. Sometimes the best solution is to just stand back and wait for things to sort themselves out… and that might be happening right now.
In autumn 2021, Lukáš Rosol figured in the five-man nomination for the Davis Cup final tournament in Innsbruck together with Jiří Veselý, Tomáš Macháč, Zdenek Kolář and Jiří Lehečka. At Veselý’s instigation, the players were to discuss the redistribution of premiums, which, thanks to the new promoter of Kosmos, increased to 400,000 dollars for the participants of the basic groups. Rosol should have improved from $65,333 to $81,333.
But union president Ivo Kaderka rejected the proposal and sent the final draft of the contracts the day before departure. Veselý, who played the role of number one, was to receive 157,000 dollars, Macháč as number two, 93,000 and the others, including Rosola, 50,000. The former 26th player in the world, Rosol, described the negotiations as blackmail, yet he signed the contract and sent it back to the union on the eve of his departure. But the hairdresser did not add his signature and Rosol was excluded from the nomination.
He took the case to court, asking for 50,000 dollars (roughly 1.2 million crowns) as compensation for his absence from the tournament.
However, the judge of the circuit court for Prague 7, Marie Filippiová, rejected the player’s claim and ordered him to pay the costs of the court proceedings. She came to the opinion that he was rightfully excluded from the nomination. If Rosol strongly objected to the lowering of the amount to $50,000, the defendant had a just cause for its action, the judge explained.
Do you think that people are afraid to stand up to the union in any way?
I can’t speak for anyone else, but those cases are. And I hope that will change in the future.
Is your playing career definitely over, or are you still planning to participate in some tournaments?
I don’t want to say goodbye for good yet, but I know that time is coming. My health condition no longer allows me to be as competitive as I would imagine. Regeneration will take more time than what I am able to actively give to tennis, but that is natural at my age. I’m glad that I can still play a match here and there and enjoy the tournament atmosphere as a player. Our family has grown and I have to say that I enjoy every moment that we are all together. That’s one of the things tennis takes away from you, family time. And that is my main priority now.
What do you plan to do after the end of your career, do you want to stay in tennis, either as a coach or as an official who would try to do things differently?
I definitely want to stay with tennis, tennis is my whole life. I have had a varied career, I have met many inspiring and experienced people. I know what I would like to pass on. I am already receiving some offers for cooperation, from the Czech Republic and abroad. Considering the situation, I wouldn’t resist even a position from which something could finally start to change in Czech tennis. I think that after all these long years, our tennis deserves it. I believe that everything will come at the right time.