KUALA LUMPUR: Teams will not get to manipulate with competition format from the next Thomas-Uber Cup Finals in 2010. The Badminton World Federation (BWF) are set to introduce another draw after the group stage to ensure that teams get no chance to pre-plan the opponents they prefer to meet in the knockout stage. At this year’s Thomas Cup Finals in Jakarta, South Korea made a mockery of the premier world men’s team championship when they lost all their group ties by fielding singles players in the doubles and vice versa. The intention was to finish at the bottom of the three-team group to go into the same quarter of the knockout draw with Denmark. Despite bringing disrepute to the sport and coming under fire from many quarters, South Korea accomplished their objective to qualify for their first-ever final. They beat Denmark 3-2 in the quarter-finals and Indonesia 3-0 in the semi-finals. They lost 1-3 to China in the final. The current format of all 12 teams moving into a pre-determined knockout draw was introduced in 2004. The BWF’s secretary general, Stuart Borrie, said that they were aware of the loophole in rules that allowed teams to manipulate with them. “We cannot blame the coaches or the team managers. There was a set of rules and the teams merely saw the opportunity of making the best use of them,” he said at his office in Cheras yesterday. “The BWF and their members want this to be reviewed. We are looking at having a draw process half way through the Finals to ensure that teams do get the chance to deliberately lose their ties.” Borrie added that it was important for the Finals to justify their status as the championships that brought out the best in teams. “We are also concerned that England did not have their best team for the last Finals as they wanted to focus on the Beijing Olympics. The Thomas-Uber Cup Finals should be the stage for team to showcase their best. All these will be looked into at the next exco meeting (in Lausanne next month),” he said. Although an official announcement had not been made, Malaysia are set to host the 2010 Finals. “The plan was to stage the Finals of Thomas Cup and Uber Cups separately. But at our Council meeting during the Beijing Olympics, some members voiced out fears that the focus would not be so much on the Uber Cup if we continued with the plan,” said Borrie. “It was finally agreed that the two Finals be staged together. Initially, Malaysia were the only bidders for the Thomas Cup Finals. “We have asked them to include the Uber Cup Finals as well and come back to us with an amended bid paper.”
For any rules, there are loopholes to bypass or manipulate to someone's advantage. The important thing is when that happen, something is done quickly to plug that hole. There is an old Chinese saying "It is not too late to mend the fence after the sheep have been killed." In this case, WBF is taking a positive step forward in trying to prevent the ugly incident to happen again. As to how the re-draw is going to be we will have to wait and see. Of course, before the last TC incident, previous TC already had precedents that teams "subtlely" playing with the line up to try to finish second in the group matches so they can face a preceived easier opponent in the knock-out stage. There were minimum outcry and WBF have not taken up any remedy. But this time, it was quite blatant and WBF will be a fool if they still do not do anything.
It's about time.. ..BWF steps in and takes control of the nearly laughable format (in a way, i think BWF should thank & give credit to the KOR team for exposing it so badly).. Personally, if i were BWF, i would not allow any last place group team to advance to the elimination/knockout round(s)/stage(s) (e.g. team which finishes with an 0-3 record). *Btw, thanks for the article, George. Do you mind giving us the link/source, as well??..
ok, chris..here u go>> http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/9/12/sports/2008026&sec=sports
