“Simply untrue” Craig Tiley dismisses claims of covering Novak Djokovic’s legal cost during his visa case in Australia
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Craig Tiley, Novak Djokovic
It has been almost a week since Novak Djokovic was deported out of Australia but controversies surrounding his 12-day troubled stay in the country continue to grow. The latest one to emerge is directed at Craig Tiley, Tennis Australia Chief and tournament director of the Australian Open.
As per reports by DailyMail, Djokovic’s legal fees of $500,000 was ‘agreed’ to be covered by Tennis Australia. Tiley was also seen changing his stance towards Djokovic’s participation as he had changed his tone and finally decided to stay away and let the government deal with the situation and accept that either he will be vaccinated or have an exemption.
Change in the reaction of Tiley might have given a rise to these speculations which were bashed by Tiley himself. “I have seen those reports today and we don’t really go into detail on financial arrangements that we have with the players. But those reports are simply untrue,” said Tiley during his conversation with Australian media house News 9.
“This year will be no different”: Craig Tiley despite Novak Djokovic’s absence
With the Grand Slam now well and truly in action, the focus is back on the Grand Slam instead of Djokovic’s controversy. With the tournament set to conclude on 30th January, Tiley spoke if he would like to make some changes or will new changes will happen in Djokovic’s absence.
“Well, every year, we get to the end of the Australian Open and there’s two champions who hold the trophies up. There’s a women’s winner on Saturday night and a men’s winner on Sunday night. We go back and we bring the whole team together and we review what we did during the year.
“We do that primarily so that we can plan towards 2023 in this case. We spend weeks together reviewing what we’ve done, what did we do well, what we could do better, what do we need to change. That’s a process we go through every year and this year will be no different,” said Tiley.
“We put a statement out recently and I’m very focused today on delivering a great event. I’m proud of what the team has done and I’m proud of what we’ve delivered so far. We’ve had four days of unbelievable tennis and great entertainment and will continue to have that for the next 10 days,” added Tiley dismissing he will be resigning after this year’s event.
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Sarthak Shitole
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