By Nick Georgandis

(July 22, 2012) -- Outside of the four Grand Slam tournaments, no tennis event has more prestige than the ATP World Tour Finals, held annually at the O2 Arena in London and guaranteed to showcase the top eight men's singles and doubles teams each year.

Since 2009, the tournament's sponsor has been Barclays PLC, the prestigious international banking and financial service company whose history dates back more than 300 years.

An internationally respected sponsor for an internationally respected tournament: It makes perfect sense that the ATP should hitch its wagon to such a powerful star. But what does the men's organization do now that Barclays is on the hottest of hot seats, embroiled in a scandal, the effects of which have most pundits revisiting the 2008 US bank bailout disaster.

In the last month, it has emerged that Barclays and a number of other UK-based banks manipulated the Londor Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) during 2005-2009, for its own profit.

The LIBOR is used to determine interest rates for virtually every kind of loan in the world, and Barclays submitted false information that it was in a more precarious financial situation than it actally was.

Already, Barclays has been smashed by economic regulators, both in the UK and the US, to the tune of $453 million. But even that huge number looks like small change next to the onslaught of lawsuits that the company could face -- one UK publication believes the total sum is at least $7.1 billion.

Last week, Barclays CEO Bob Diamond resigned, following the company's Chief Operating Officer Jerry del Missier, who did the same earlier in July. Ironically, the top headline on Barclays' website is to announce the company has extended its sponsorship of the soccer Premier League to 2016.

An open letter dated July 14 to "all customers and clients" from board chairman Marcus Agius, offered a short, somewhat curt apology for the company's actions So what, if anything, does this mean for the ATP? It's egg on the tournament's face at the very least, because part of having a tournament sponsored is the need to mention the sponsor and display its logo constantly.

The scandal is bad, and threatens to get worse as more information is revealed. If things get uncomfortably ugly, it might be time for the ATP to pull the plug on the sponsorship, no matter how lucrative it has been, and use its own profits to sponsor the tournament.

There's professional sports precedent for such a maneuver, by major league baseball's Houston Astros during the 2001 season.

In 2000, the Astros opened their new downtown baseball stadium, having sold the naming rights to local energy giant Enron in a blockbuster 30-year, $100-million transaction.

In October 2001, Enron's financial scandal came to light, and the following February, the Astros bought back the remainder of the naming rights and removed Enron's name from all material associated with the franchise and the stadium.

(via; Photo Credit: AFP/Patrick Kovarik)