Association announces
Four cases of abuse in German tennis
Updated 12/19/2024 – 12:09 p.mReading time: 1 min.
It took a while, but now the German Tennis Association has published results on the subject of abuse of power. But much remains in the dark.
There have been at least four cases of interpersonal violence in German tennis in the past four decades. This is the result of an independent commission’s review of allegations of abuse of power in German tennis, which the German Tennis Federation has now published. Due to personal rights, the report was not made fully accessible on the advice of the commission.
Interpersonal violence refers to psychological, physical and sexual violence as well as neglect. The three-page letter from the commission, which includes former tennis professional Eric Jelen, says they also found evidence for a “variety of other cases”.
Research by “Süddeutscher Zeitung”, NDR and Sportschau uncovered several cases of abuse of power by the then DTB Vice President Dirk Hordorff last year. Hordorff, who has since died, then resigned from his position, but always rejected the allegations of sexual violence and abuse of power as “simply untrue”.
The commission also criticized the fact that the association did not have a protection concept to prevent interpersonal violence during the four cases that became known. This facilitated the cases. The DTB has now installed a corresponding protection concept that meets the requirements of the German Olympic Sports Confederation.
