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 Nastase seeks ITF presidency
Posted: Tuesday June 29, 1999 05:13 PM
LONDON (Reuters) -- Ilie Nastase, once the bad boy of tennis, now wants to run the game and boost its image. To that end, the ever-popular Romanian once known as "Nasty" is one of seven candidates running for president of the International Tennis Federation in an election to be held next week in the Netherlands. Nastase wants former stars like Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg to sit on a new players' council and he is also keen on establishing an ITF International Tennis Center to help promote the game around the world. But he doesn't think players can be forced to be more entertaining on court -- the way he was in his heyday. "You can't tell them how to behave on court. It has to come from inside them. Besides, today they play to make money, not to entertain people," he said. Nastase, now 52, is already president of his country's tennis federation -- though he failed in an election to become mayor of Bucharest three years ago. "I don't know if I'll win or not. I don't expect to," he said during the rain that curtailed Wimbledon's program on Tuesday. If he fails to win, he would still hope to work on an ITF council or commission to help the game. "I don't want power or momey. I just want to be involved in the game that gave me so much." The Players' Council that Nastase envisions does not exist at present -- the men's and women's game each have their own organizations. "I look at golf, where the players run their game. I would have people like Becker and Edberg on it and women like [Martina] Navratilova and [Chris] Evert," he said. "They could make the connection between the ITF and the players. Nowadays I think most players don't know what the ITF is or what it does." Nastase, the beaten Wimbledon finalist in 1972 and 1976 and world number one in 1973, believes he is the first ex-player, certainly the first former number one, to be a candidate for the game's top office. "It's the first time there has been a democratic election, Previously it has been by appointment," he said. Australian Brian Tobin is resigning as president after eight years and the election will be held at the ITF annual general meeting. Nastase feels more must be done to promote the game internationally, adding that a lot of poorer countries who cannot afford to pay for television cover of big events should be given it anyway "just to promote the game." And players such as world No. 1 Pete Sampras should be sent to poorer nations for the same reason. Too many players, he said, "play just to earn money and they don't give anything back to the game. They don't realize how much tennis has given them. Other people work for their money." Nastase admitted he was the same way when he was playing. "I didn't realize until I retired how good tennis had been to me," he said. "Once you retire, you realize who you are, what you had, what is important."
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