Tennis star Boris Becker last week retweeted a quote from the 2006 film Rocky Balboa: “It ain’t about how hard you hit,” Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky tells his son. “It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”
It has been a bruising time for Becker, now 50.
In June last year, a London court declared him bankrupt, because of his failure to pay a debt, understood to be about ￡3.3 million (US$4.4 million, owed to the private banking firm Arbuthnot Latham.
Photo: AFP
Becker was and remains furious, insisting that he has not been given enough time to sell some assets to repay the bank.
This month, in a head-scratching twist, Becker claimed diplomatic immunity from his debts.
If there was widespread surprise in 2013 when he was named as Novak Djokovic’s new coach, this was nothing compared with the shock that accompanied his new gig: Becker had been made the Central African Republic’s (CAR) attache for sports, culture and humanitarian affairs to the EU the High Court in London was told.
Becker, who has homes in Switzerland and London to name but two, has never been to the CAR, which is among the poorest nations, and would not be paid for his role.
However, under Article 31 of the 1961 Vienna Convention, Becker’s lawyer said he could not be pursued for further payments.
The British government would have to request that Becker’s immunity be lifted and only Central African President Faustin Archange Touadera could grant it.
The saga did not end there. Last week, CAR officials said they had no record of Becker’s new job.
Moreover, the passport was a “clumsy fake,” Central African Minister of Foreign Affairs Charles Armel Doubane said.
Becker retired from tennis in 1999, at 31, having won six Grand Slam titles and earned about ￡19 million in prize money.
In “retirement,” he has also had success, but his off-court travails and high-rolling extravagance have made him a tabloid figure.
There is a sense of sad desperation about Becker’s attempt to claim diplomatic immunity. Not least because the CAR, which has endured a civil war and famine, is such a mess.
Becker’s public pronouncements, made through social media, mainly relate to his concern that Germany might not make it past the group stages of the World Cup, but these might soon be the least of his worries.
Perhaps Becker can take solace from Rocky Balboa again.
“[Life is about] how much you can take and keep moving forward,” Stallone goes on to say. “That’s how winning is done!”
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