Djokovic broke rules.
Firstly,
Tennis Australia and Victoria officials said Djokovic had been one of a “handful” of the people granted medical exemptions and had received no special treatment, with applications anonymous and reviewed by two independent panels. Without an exemption, all Australian Open participants, including staff and fans attending the event, are required to show proof of vaccination.
The federal government, however, is responsible for international borders and visas and did not participate in the process for considering exemptions. All of the athletes that received the local exemptions were not allowed to stay. So the exemptions they were given by Tennis Australia and Victoria are not valid for border entry.
Novak Djokovic, the top-ranked men’s tennis player, acknowledged on Wednesday that a travel document he presented to Australian border officials last week contained false information, as the country’s authorities continued to investigate whether he should be deported.
But Mr. Djokovic’s statement did not fully resolve a range of questions that have swirled over his quest to remain in Australia and seek a record 21st Grand Slam title. Among them are exactly when he learned of the positive test result and how his travel documents came to falsely assert that he had not traveled internationally in the 14 days before his arrival in Australia.
In his statement, Mr. Djokovic also addressed questions about that declaration he made on his visa paperwork that he had not traveled to any other countries in the 14 days before arriving in Australia and ws aware the paperwork warns of serious penalties for false answers to the questions.
His declaration had seemed to be contradicted by social media posts showing him traveling between Spain and Serbia. On Wednesday, he said his agent had made an “administrative mistake in ticking the incorrect box.”
“This was a human error and certainly not deliberate,” he said, adding that his team on Wednesday had “provided additional information to the Australian government to clarify the matter.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/world/asia/novak-djokovic-covid-statement.html
This was supported in other news outlets. Day late and a dollar short.
Additionally he still did a photo shoot with L’Equipe magazine in Belgrade on the 18th when he knew he was positive from TMz.com which he did not report either as required.
https://www.tmz.com/2022/01/12/novak-djokovic-australian-open-covid-photoshoot-lying/
He is supposed to be an adult and to be awarded the opportunity to compete for such huge prizes he had to do a few things that were not that hard to accomplish. It is his name out there not his “crew.” He is responsible and he either screwed up or did it deliberately. Then tried to bluff his way through and they wouldn’t buy his violating their rules that he was forewarned about.
So if they are trying to keep him from competing, he sure obliged them by providing multiple violations of their rules all by himself. And anyone with any intelligence would know that the tennis federation and the State of Victoria cannot overrule federal law concerning visas to enter the country. And he knew that, too, and tried to get way with it. The only question is why?
wy69
There were two other individuals, associated with AO 2022 who were admitted into the country under the same conditions as Djokovic. Nobodt stopped them at the border. If Djokovic was not there, nobody would try to deport the other two.
You could have also mentioned Nadal being allowed to enter Australia few days after reporting positive for Covid in Spain. As far as I remember, Rublev was also positive for Covid but allowed to enter Australia.
The following link will remind you that Djokovic had the most successful tennis career in history:
https://www.ultimatetennisstatistics.com/goatList
If he could compete in AO the year before, same rules could have been applied in 2022. We all know that vaccination mandate rule is an arbitrary one, it offers no benefit in protecting public health. Any major international sports competition should not take place if they discriminate against participants who chose not to take experimental Covid jab.