It's Official - No Penalty for Lin Dan or Li Mao

[cooler]

no need to justify again what should be the appropriate penalties for each party, we all have our says and votes in the 'penalty for lin dan' thread http://www.badmintoncentral.com/foru...ad.php?t=51906 and poll. Repeating the debate of 'what it should be the right penalty' here only risk closing this thread. I suggest discussing matters forward looking.

I'm glad bwf had considered the whole situation (plus many other unspoken variables) in making their rulings. As i have said before, bwf can throw the book at LD but LD's specific action isn't in the book. I believe LD already got penalized. He was just a runner up plus losing the $ difference between 1st and 2nd prize. If LHI is such a supreme player, he shouldn't lose to a china 4th stringer chen yu in fiirst round 08 AE. He also got trounced by a lowly ranked vietnam TM Nguyen like 21-9 21-9 in the first round again in the following week SWISS Open. (and lost PAW points guessing TNM vs R. Susilo in the SWISS OPEN, like many of us)

I still think independent line judging is just a temporary solution because human do make errors. In the 08 AE, the few videos i've watched, i myself saw 2 bad line calls, one against LCW and another against korea in MD final. The question is, how much human errors can we live with?

To conclude, the 'no penalty' for lin dan voters win the PAW
and ~72% of voters saw it differently

[LazyBuddy]

I think BWF takes a rather positive approach overall, as they try to fix the problem from the "root" by implementing more reliable judgement system.

Whether LD or LM or both should be punished, is rather a smaller issue when compare to the whole situation of line judegement. Therefore, BWF might not even bother to poke the 2 power houses, instead, trying to fix the problem, and prevent it to repeat for the future.

Personally, I don't think it's a message to players as they can feel free to start a fight or shooting darts all over the place. Anyone has some basic sense should know what is right or wrong. I believe if the "root" is fixed, the chance to cause such incidents should be greatly reduced to begin with.

[cooler]

I think BWF takes a rather positive approach overall, as they try to fix the problem from the "root" by implementing more reliable judgement system.

Whether LD or LM or both should be punished, is rather a smaller issue when compare to the whole situation of line judegement. Therefore, BWF might not even bother to poke the 2 power houses, instead, trying to fix the problem, and prevent it to repeat for the future.

Personally, I don't think it's a message to players as they can feel free to start a fight or shooting darts all over the place. Anyone has some basic sense should know what is right or wrong. I believe if the "root" is fixed, the chance to cause such incidents should be greatly reduced to begin with.

Still, if i'm a player, i wouldn't try provoke BWF again hoping that i can get away with the same thing.

[ctjcad]

Please read www.internationalbadminton.org
BWF has concluded the investigation and blamed heavily on Korean Organizer for favouring local players...
BWF will recommend that all major events including upcoming Olympic will use Independent Line Judges...

Badminton World Federation's Major Incident Review Team (MIRT) have decided not to punish Lindan over the incident that happens in Korea. However BWF will be looking into the Hawkeye system and as well as pushing for more independent line judges in the future tournaments.

..a very interesting turn of events..and decision..Now, we want to see REAL actions!...Btw, thanks, guys, for the news update-

Using independent line judges will have a big impact on the overall costing of the game, will it be good for badminton in the long run?

..yes..on another hand, it should be interesting to see the reaction/response by both the KBA **and** China's badminton association, if and when they'll host a major BWF event in their home turf..

no need to justify again what should be the appropriate penalties for each party, we all have our says and votes in the 'penalty for lin dan' thread http://www.badmintoncentral.com/foru...ad.php?t=51906 and poll. Repeating the debate of 'what it should be the right penalty' here only risk closing this thread. I suggest discussing matters forward looking.

...

I still think independent line judging is just a temporary solution because human do make errors. In the 08 AE, the few videos i've watched, i myself saw 2 bad line calls, one against LCW and another against korea in MD final. The question is, how much human errors can we live with?

...

..i think kwun and the mods will be watching this thread very2 closely...

As for the question in bold, i would think the decision of using international linejudges is, simply, to prevent any bias linejudging/a sense that the local linejudges are "favouring the local players". It's a bit unfortunate that it had to take this type of incident for them (BWF) to do something about the linejudging issue, but i guess that's what the panel/committee has concluded to prevent any similar incidents in the future.

[cooler]

..a very interesting turn of events..and decision..Now, we want to see REAL actions!...Btw, thanks, guys, for the news update-

..yes..on another hand, it should be interesting to see the reaction/response by both the KBA **and** China's badminton association, if and when they'll host a major BWF event in their home turf..

..i think kwun and the mods will be watching this thread very2 closely...

As for the question in bold, i would think the decision of using international linejudges is, simply, to prevent any bias linejudging/a sense that the local linejudges are "favouring the local players". It's a bit unfortunate that it had to take this type of incident for them (BWF) to do something about the linejudging issue, but i guess that's what the panel/committee has concluded to prevent any similar incidents in the future.

i guess bwf wanna take baby steps regarding the line judging matter.

[silentheart]

I for one think internation line judge will not work in long term. Why? Look at the ice skating incidents in the past. I want to be a devil's advicate here also. Look at the tennis Grand Slams. Ther are serveral regular chair emp used for the big match. They over rule line call when they see a miss call. Why can't the chair emp do the same in this case? I fell that it is more KBA's fault than anyone else. However, I fell LD can just walk off the court in protest, even Jonny Mac never throw a racquet at another player. Like Jimmy Conners only play tennis with the water bottle. Yes, I think LD should be fined as an example. The truth is, the fine is just some pocket changes compair to the endorsement fee they gets.
About machine line call, I am on Feder's side about the machine line call. It is a calculation based on the masurements of the ball and other variables but not enough. Tennis ball is in if any part of the ball makes contact with the line. It is not initial contact point of the ball. Our wonderful sport of badminton is judging on the initial contact point of shuttle. If the initial contact point is outside of the line, it is out. Even if the force deformed the shuttle head or the feather roll around to touch the line, it is still out. There are still too difficult for machine to make a call at this point for badminton.

[Loopy]

This is just wrong.
There is a bad line call, and is that a reason to throw the racket at somebody?
A reason to protest yes. To be in an agressive behaviour, absolutely not.
And the conclusion to all this: it's the line caller's fault that Lin Dan threw his racket. Ridiculous.
Even in Hockey there are penalities for maligned behavior.

[Fan888]

I think it was a fair, diplomatic, and compromising conclusion that everyone gets blame and no one gets punished. But, unfortunately, I don't think using independent line judges would work for the long run. Can you imagine the additional costs of bringing in these line judges. It is not that badminton is very profitable to start with.

[jamesd20]

I agree that introducing international line judges would probably reduce bias, but like cooler said it won't prevent wrong line calls. Humans make errors and with the speed the shuttle travels there will always be errors.

I don't believe it will make the quality of badminton higher though, and it will massively increase the cost of running a tournament to either the BWF or the organiser. Like we said before if you have to have 50+ linejudges flown in from around the world and suppl them accomadation you are talking paying a significant % of the total prize money out.

[YinLoung]

Still, if i'm a player, i wouldn't try provoke BWF again hoping that i can get away with the same thing.

That would make you a cheater and not a badminton player.

[Birdwood]

The issue as I said before in the thread of "The impact of bad line calls on MSF players in KO 08 and CO 07" was bigger than metering out punishments to LD and LM. The blames went around to the organizer, linesmen, etc. To quantify appropriate amount of punishment for each party involved would be very difficult. Without even-handedly punishing everyone, any punishment to LD would be viewed by China as unfair and unacceptable, which could further the confrontation started by an unjustifiable root cause of biased linesmen in KO 08. It was China vs BWF, not LD vs BWF. BWF has apparently no stomach for such a political fight.

A related question to punishment would be how BWF could take back the KO MSF 08 title from LHI and gave it to LD? As the game 3 tied at 21-21, LD lost the next point to LHI because of a bad line call. Without that biased call or even with a LET by the umpire, LD would have won MSF title, at least on paper, since he won the subsequent two points. For that reason, LD could have been robbed of MS title in KO MSF 08. How BWF would be able to address that thorny issue? A solution of "No punishment" satisfies LD as a trade off for his bad behavior with his possible winning. Everyone involved now can move forward.

[cooler]

The issue as I said before in the thread of "The impact of bad line calls on MSF players in KO 08 and CO 07" was bigger than metering out punishments to LD and LM. The blames went around to the organizer, linesmen, etc. To quantify appropriate amount of punishment for each party involved would be very difficult. Without even-handedly punishing everyone, any punishment to LD would be viewed by China as unfair and unacceptable, which could further the confrontation started by an unjustifiable root cause of biased linesmen in KO 08. It was China vs BWF, not LD vs BWF. BWF has apparently no stomach for such a political fight.

A related question to punishment would be how BWF could take back the KO MSF 08 title from LHI and gave it to LD? As the game 3 tied at 21-21, LD lost the next point to LHI because of a bad line call. Without that biased call or even with a LET by the umpire, LD would have won MSF title, at least on paper, since he won the subsequent two points. For that reason, LD could have been robbed of MS title in KO MSF 08. How BWF would be able to address that thorny issue? A solution of "No punishment" satisfies LD as a trade off for his bad behavior with his possible winning. Everyone involved now can move forward.

good summary birdwood. Some of your comments were those 'unspoken variables' that i was alluding to.

Punishment for LD and/or Li mao are petty retribution when compared to the ramification of such penalty and the much bigger issues at hand. Also, this year is the olympic year where bwf want to show case badminton. To really resolve this incident properly, bwf have to delicate manpower, time and money which they don't have in 2008. No one was hurt, no property damage done, it is better to spend resources to fix the core problem. By not penalizing LD or Li Mao, I strongly doubt this incident would encourage more players, coaches and organizers to repeat the KO incident. I do hope everybody have learned something from this in their own way.

[Tsumaranai]

Still, if i'm a player, i wouldn't try provoke BWF again hoping that i can get away with the same thing.

That would make you a cheater and not a badminton player.

I don't see how that would be cheating in any form. As well, this discussion is flawed. You're all assuming that the players don't have the integrity that has been attributed to this game. You also can't determine that Lin Dan was throwing the racket toward Li Mao with malice. It may have been in the general direction, but that has no bearing. This will not really incite any abuse of policy, as there have been disreputable claims against the KBA/KO and the line judges prior to this, and complaints are not filed for all competitions, thus misbehavior in another tournament would not be judged in the same manner. This is a logical fallacy, as people are being presumptuous that it would lead to such further ill-natured conduct. The event of a certain occurence does not conclude in the likeliness of another because it may be possible, and even if it did happen, you can't prove that it was because of such an action, or that it was inevitable.

[jump_smash]

Like I have posted in the past "international Line Judges" are the most appropriate action. BWF uses them in Thomas and Uber Cups!

They use and pay independent Umpires and Tournament referees.....they need to be professional with Line Judges.

[Birdwood]

I agree that the incident and its resolution will not lead to more recurrences for similar episode. Why? The confrontation between LD and LM brought out to the open a long ignored fact that biased line judging can produce wrong match winners. Now BWF has to get serious about fixing the root cause to restore the confidence, which will remove the fuel for such dispute in the future. Besides, the episode taught everyone a lesson for how to properly behave oneself. I think BWF comes out this incident smarter and more determined to take control of the situation rather than letting some biased linesmen decide the match outcomes.

[Tsumaranai]

I think that unless the player did not see the shuttle go out, then they should be the line judge, as they'll have a better perspective, and sometimes the line judges make incorrect calls. The line judges should be there to either support the player's decision or overrule it. Although the conceived flaw in that is that if the line judge has a conviction that it's out and it was not, then it would still be a bad call.

[block306]

Saturday March 15, 2008

No more biased line calls
PETALING JAYA: The World Badminton Federation (BWF) have finally made the right call by deciding to use independent line judges for future major tournaments.
The decision was made in the wake of the controversy surrounding the poor line calls during a match between China’s Lin Dan and South Korean Lee Hyun-il in the final of the Korean Open in January.
The biased judging in favour of Hyun-il saw Lin Dan blowing his top and getting involved in a scuffle with South Korea coach Li Mao of China. Hyun-il eventually won the title.
Yesterday, the BWF’s Major Incident Review Team (MIRT) found that their investigation on the match between Lin Dan and Hyun-il showed that the linesmen had favoured the local player.
MIRT chairperson Anne Smillie said that they would recommend to the BWF council, who will meet in Jakarta during the Thomas Cup Finals in May, to use independent judges for all major tournaments, including the Olympic Games in Beijing.
The team, however, will not take disciplinary actions against Lin Dan or any of the coaches following the Korean incident.
The MIRT also met up with Dr Paul Hawkins’ Hawk-Eye company during the recent All-England to discuss if the technology used in tennis for disputed line calls could be implemented for badminton.