Acknowledging hand in a racket with government (9)
I believe the answer is:
admitting
'acknowledging' is the definition.
('admit' can be a synonym of 'acknowledge')
'hand in a racket with government' is the wordplay.
'hand' becomes 'mitt' ('mitt' can be a synonym of 'hand').
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'racket' becomes 'din' (I've seen this before).
'with' says to put letters next to each other.
'government' becomes 'g'.
'a'+'din'='adin'
'mitt' inserted into 'adin' is 'admittin'.
'admittin'+'g'='ADMITTING'
(Other definitions for admitting that I've seen before include "Letting in" , "Accepting the truth of" .)