from www.thestar.com.my PETALING JAYA: The Badminton World Federation (BWF) will push to have more international umpires at Super Series tournaments. There are already plans to increase the number of international officials for the 12 tournaments on the circuit this year and it will be mandatory from 2009 to have a total of eight certificated and accredited foreign umpires. The BWF events committee said that host organisers would be responsible to get the eight international officials. The second season of the Super Series will kick off with the Malaysian Open from Jan 15-20 followed by the Korean Open from Jan 22-27. The third Super Series event is the All-England in March and the tournament will be celebrating its 25th year under the Yonex sponsorship. The All-England organisers have already issued invitations for two BWF certificated umpires to officiate in Birmingham but the BWF are in talks to increase the number to eight non-British officials. The BWF events committee chairman, Anne Smillie, said on the federation's website: “We want to increase the number of highly-qualified umpires throughout the badminton world to ensure officiating at our major events is of the highest possible standard. “We are also acutely conscious that at some events there is particular need for umpire neutrality on court and we can achieve that by increasing the number of certificated and accredited umpires around the world.” The latest move should reduce biased decisions in favour of players from the host nation. Malaysia's top singles player Lee Chong Wei was a victim of poor umpiring and questionable line calls on two previous occasions in matches involving Chinese players late last year. Chong Wei lost to Bao Chunlai in the final of the China Open in November and he expressed his dissatisfaction with the umpiring after losing to Lin Dan in the final of the Hong Kong Open in December.
i'm fairly certain that the BWF wouldn't move to change it if only one player complained. at the end of the day the BWF contains members from most badminton nations. A political battle may have been won somewhere - but the fact that it was in favour of increasing the number of qualified umpires is a win for fairness - whether or not unfairness was there in the first place or not.
Good call, a step in the right direction. Wonder if this would extend to the Olympics. How do officials get selected at Olympics, by the way?
Maybe its time for the BC members to volunteer and learn how to be an umpire since there is so many complains about Umpiring in this forum.
Watch the video on tube.com, where all the missjudges are, total 7 or 8. Here is the link. http://youtube.com/watch?v=8kEc19cg-Ts
I know for sure that BWF is working on it to get more qualified umpires especially for Olympics....as Badminton will be watched by IOC...It seems that BWF is getting his acts at last after many complaints....still BWF should work on qualifying points as it doe snot make sense, the losers of 1st,2nd or final qualification have same points, also distribution of prize money as well as placement of qualifiers ( prefer to be randomly selected like in Tennis, no Q1, Q2,etc)
Hmm..BWF showing toughness?!.. ..read the news on BWF's official website; and also, in light of countries/players pulling out/cancelling/never appearing from tourneys, at the last minute, another news came out which mentions about BWF proposing somekind of a bond payment for countries signing up to compete in major tourneys.. http://www.internationalbadminton.org/newscontent.asp?pageid={1EA224A9-53CF-43F1-8DBE-EF56043320CC} ..maybe BWF is finally reading and heeding all the complaints that are in BC?!...
yes, and i hope it will be for the better of badminton. for the second most played sport in the world badminton should be getting a lot more exposure than it currently has.
I'm glad there will be more umpires as I think it's desirable to have officials from other countries when officiating a match between players from different countries. That's not to say that I belive there has been cheating in the past but I think we are always going to have those sorts of complaints if the officials are from the same country. In football the officials are always drawn from other countries. It's not because the officials from those countries are incapable of being unbiased but rather it removes even the suspicion that they are being biased. Having said that, when England won the World Cup by beating Germany in 1966 there was a dubious goal awarded to England by a Russian linesman. There have always been allegations along the lines that the Russians and Germans hate each other and the linesmans decision has always been questioned! Personally, I think it is a very professional step and good for the game.