Unicef’s goodwill envoy a messenger of ill-will, complain critics

UNITED NATIONS: When two-time Wimbledon tennis champion Boris Becker, a United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) goodwill ambassador, refused to make a commitment not to play in South Africa, a country blacklisted for its apartheid policies, the United Nations’ (UN) children’s agency stripped him of the prestigious title back in October 1987.

“I will be 20 years old this year and I am a good professional tennis player, but I think that I am too young to enter politics,” Becker said, while the then West German government protested the Unicef firing, backing one of its own nationals.