Women's professional tennis threatens to leave China in the absence of clarification on the story of star
Peng Shuai
. "We are fully prepared to withdraw our activities and to face all the complications that will follow," said Steve Simon, number one of the WTA, the association that manages the women's circuit worldwide, speaking on CNN. rape is more important than business. "
Peng, 35, accused former Deputy Prime Minister Zhang Gaoli on social media in early November of forcing her into a sexual relationship three years ago, before making her his mistress.
Simon, who went further than calling for an independent investigation to shed light on the case, told the Atlanta network that the WTA plans ten events in China for 2022 worth tens of millions of dollars. but that he was willing to withdraw them.
"We are at a crossroads in our relationship with China and our business there," he noted, adding that the WTA must demand justice and cannot compromise: "women must be respected and uncensored."
China has been at the center of the women's professional tennis association's aggressive expansion over the past decade, hosting nine tournaments in the 2019 season, the latest before the end of the Covid-19 pandemic, with a total prize pool of 30. 4 million dollars.
At the same time, China is under pressure on a number of human rights issues, amid growing calls for a boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
The WTA's stance on Peng, if confirmed, would go much further than other sports organizations that have struggled to balance the demands of fans and players to oppose human rights violations with their reliance on the Chinese market.
Peng posted on November 2 on his Weibo account, the Twitter in Mandarin, the post with the allegations, blacked out in no time. Since then, the Chinese star, former number one in the world ranking for doubles thanks to victories in Wimbledon and Paris, has no longer communicated with the outside world or presented himself in public
, while Zhang Gaoli, member of the Permanent Committee of the Politburo of the CCP from 2013 to 2018, he never reacted to the allegations.
On Wednesday, the English-language channel CGTN, part of the state-owned CCTV, unveiled a screenshot of an email attributed to Peng that was reportedly sent to the WTA.
On CNN, Simon reiterated his doubts about the authenticity of the message in which the champion calls her accusations against Zhang "false".
"I don't think that's the truth at all," she added, describing the email as a "staged. If she was forced to write it, if someone wrote it for her, we don't know, but until we talk to her in person we don't we will be reassured ", concluded Simon.