A British court has found former tennis champion and poker ambassador Boris Becker guilty of breaking the terms of a bankruptcy agreement he reached in 2017. As a result of these charges, Becker will be spending the next 30 months (two and a half years) in jail. He will only see half of that time behind bars, however; the other half will be under home detention unless Becker breaks the terms of that release. He will return to jail if that occurs.
Found Guilty on Four Charges
Judge Deborah Taylor handed the sentence down to Becker on four charges related to that 2017 case. Becker was accused of concealing debt, removal of property, and two counts of failure to disclose assets. In a bankruptcy case, these things are all important segments, as if a person shields their assets or hides other property, it can affect the judgment of the bankruptcy court.
The case comes from mismanagement of a loan that Becker took out on a villa in Mallorca, Spain. He used that villa to get a £4 million loan from the private bank Arbuthnot Latham. Becker allegedly used that money for alimony payments to his first wife, Barbara Feltus, but it was not enough to keep the financial wolves at bay.
This led to a bankruptcy court in the U. K. eventually working out a deal to alleviate Becker’s debts. In 2017, that case was settled, but since that deal was struck, more evidence has become known. Additional investigation unveiled evidence that the tennis champion had hidden much of his tennis memorabilia, including trophies, away from the eyes of the probate court totaling $4.5 million. Additionally, Becker was accused of squirreling away massive amounts of cash in foreign banks. Becker tried to claim that he did not know where these items and accounts were, but the court did not believe him, resulting in his jailing earlier this month.
For the next year-plus, Becker will call a UK prison home because of his transgressions.
From the Penthouse…
In his career, Becker was a tennis powerhouse. He would win six Grand Slam events during his career, including Wimbledon three times (his first win as a 17-year-old in 1985). He would earn over $50 million from his tennis career before retiring 1999. After his retirement, he would coach current tennis professional Novak Djokovic for a spell, with the duo breaking their partnership in 2016.
After his retirement from tennis, Becker sought out other things that would spark his competitive spirits. In 2007, Becker became a Brand Ambassador with PokerStars, wearing the Red Spade for many of his best poker performances. In 2009, he would finish in 40th place at the World Poker Tour Championship at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, earning his largest score ever of slightly more than $40K.
Becker would break with PokerStars in the mid-Teens when the company began to shift away from sponsoring athletes on the felt, at which time he moved on to partypoker as an ambassador. From 2016 until the COVID pandemic hit, Becker was associated with partypoker, but he failed to earn a cash, according to the Hendon Mob Database. In 2020, he stated that he was playing “in association with” the King’s Casino in Rozvadov on GGPoker.
For his poker career, the Hendon Mob has him listed with seven cashes from 2008 through 2016. Officially, Becker never made a final table during his sponsorship time, a 13th place finish at the 2016 Devilfish Cup in Nottingham serving as his highest finish. All totaled, Becker only earned slightly more than $111,000 in his poker endeavors.
