The Walkover & Withdrawal issue - rights and wrongs

Discussion in 'Rules / Tournament Regulation / Officiating' started by cobalt, Sep 24, 2011.

  1. XtC-604

    XtC-604 Regular Member

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    I for one don't see a problem in match fixing. It doesn't stop other countries from winning. China is just arranging which of their players should get medals.

    Match fixing is bound to happen in any competition sport.
     
  2. chris-ccc

    chris-ccc Regular Member

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    As a Badminton fan, I follow players, not countries

    .
    I disagree. :eek::eek::eek:

    As a Badminton fan, I follow players, not countries.

    When I realised and/or found that Lin Dan (our best CHN No.1 player) has been asked to give walkovers/artificially-fixed (to lose) matches to his teammates, ..., it would discourage me from following Lin Dan's performance in future.

    I wish to follow who is our best Badminton player, not who is our best Badminton acting player.

    To follow acting, I would rather go and watch a movie/film instead.
    .
     
    #362 chris-ccc, Aug 8, 2012
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2012
  3. craigandy

    craigandy Regular Member

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    Why do you not see match fixing as a problem? When you answer please take note of recent reactions by badminton fans(it was an unhappy one) and also the fact that tournaments needs sponsors. Thanks
     
  4. BaggedCat

    BaggedCat Regular Member

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    It could stop other countries from winning by the fact that the players are fresher, generally less tired and less muscle fatigued for their next match. Also the order of opponents played plays a big part. imagine going into a final having played 3 hard opponents, going 3 sets each, previously compared to being in the final and having played 1 easy opponent, getting a walkover and having a rest and playing another easy opponent (because the walk over jigged the playoff positions).
     
  5. XtC-604

    XtC-604 Regular Member

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    It was an unhappy one for those that bought tickets or to people oblivious to the fact that: in a competition sport especially one where you're representing your country: MATCH FIXING is not uncommon. Sponsor wise: this is because BWF has always done an ass job at promoting. Just look at how delayed their video uploading is on YouTube. The views on the videos aren't little. The other problem is that badminton is primarily played in a lot of poorer countries. Where the fans don't actually have that much money. Just look at all the threads on BC in the equipment section: which racquet should i buy, but i only have a budget of XX. A good contrast to this is golf: the viewership is almost the same if not less, but the fans have money and so the sport has money.

    Well blame it on the fact that the other players "suck" and i put a quotation on that because i don't genuinely believe they suck, but they are sure having a hard time beating China. Look at Malaysia for example: They only have 1 presentable singles player and 1 presentable doubles pair. They still get to the finals. Where's the problem?
    The order of playing? That's just luck of the draw. China could be not playing at all and you could of drawn against Peter Gade, Taufik etc in a row. Sure it plays a role. But you will only see the chinese in the SF/QF/F. At that stage does it really matter which Chinese player you play against? It will always be a hard fought battle.
     
  6. BaggedCat

    BaggedCat Regular Member

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    Thats the point though. its not the luck of the draw any more when you can dictate who you play by losing certain matches.

    again, the point was to NOT meet China next round and play a team that "sucks"

    China also had an extra reason which was to not knock out their own country so they get more medals.
     
  7. craigandy

    craigandy Regular Member

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    You highlighted my question but never answered it. Just interested in your opinion as you said their is no problem with match fixing. Given the fact that there are many problems like crowd dissatisfaction, it actually breaks the rules and brings the sport into disrepute and also if this keeps happening what sponsors will want to associate themselves with the sport. That's 3 problems for starters.
     
  8. mapcar

    mapcar Regular Member

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    some might say, that these players have earned the right to do the dictating, by winning the other two group matches.

    Let's change the format, such that after the group matches, the elimination bracket is randomly re-drawn. I personally, don't see nothing terribly wrong with this format. For the sake of the discussion, let's call this a legit format for the moment.

    Now, there is absolutely NO reason for the two pairs who's already advanced to either win OR lose the final match. They are forced to play the match by rule. And they will probably give the audience an okay exhibition match and conserve their energy for later. Is that kind of "not playing hard" any different from this kind of "not playing hard"?

    and what is wrong with a country trying to win more medals?
     
  9. craigandy

    craigandy Regular Member

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    Nothing. Buuuuuuut..... if you do not do it within the rules then everything. Simple. The latter being the context in which we are talking.
     
  10. BaggedCat

    BaggedCat Regular Member

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    they earned the right to go through to the next round. they didnt earn the right to dictate the placings. that was due to the flawed format. now if the format was 'if you win, you get to pick your draw in the next round' then the players have incentive to play to win. the players shouldnt have been put into the position where there was no incentive to win and benefit from losing.

    nothing wrong with a country trying to win more medal by being better than the others. but the way it would have been if they wernt disqualified meant theyd robbed another teams potential medal by simply not playing.

    all within the rules of this flawed format. except for not being queensbury
     
  11. mapcar

    mapcar Regular Member

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    That is interesting. So, we have 4 1st place pairs, and 4 2nd place pairs. Your suggestion is to have the 4 1st place pairs randomly draw for an order, and then pick their opponents according to that order? I think i like it.
     
  12. craigandy

    craigandy Regular Member

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    Wrong, Go read the BWF rules of conduct, they are still rules after all. Olympic format was not flawed it worked perfectly, It is just some countries decided to abuse the format. BWF should stand strong I am starting to think all tournaments should be group format as it is easier to expose offending parties, then maybe we could eradicate the problem rather than just being blackmailed into trying certain formats to curtail the problem.
     
  13. XtC-604

    XtC-604 Regular Member

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    I'm sorry, but you're terribly misled in life, if you think everything is black and white.
    Badminton or any sport in reality is really a business to everyone. There are going to be grey areas. This happens to be one of them.
     
  14. XtC-604

    XtC-604 Regular Member

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    You are exactly right, why would any player want to do something detrimental to their chances? So you have inadvertently agreed with my statement that match fixing is fine and that this all happened because of a flawed system. Thank you.

    Robbery or not, I don't think in the case of WD, there is a team any more competitive than China's.
    Conserving energy or putting on a decent exhibition match level play?
     
  15. craigandy

    craigandy Regular Member

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    It is in black and white, literally, the text in the rules is black and the backing is white. No grey areas within the context of this example (olympics2012). Believe me badminton is not run like a business but that whole argument lies in another thread called BWF get with the program. I think you may be missing one fact which led you to believe i am misled, this fact being if BWF want to scrap these rules(in the code of conduct), then that is fine by me. They can then legally allow all the walkovers etc they want if they think it will help the sport and grow it as a business(exactly like team orders in formula1, that was scrapped caused havoc then reinstated). However this ain't the case and i can guarantee you this incident will discourage prospective sponsors.

    P.S you still never answered why there is no problem with match fixing as I highlighted in post #367.
     
    #375 craigandy, Aug 9, 2012
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2012
  16. XtC-604

    XtC-604 Regular Member

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    Because i don't see a problem. Match fixing has been a part of pretty much every competitive sport i can think of. You don't see outrage or anything in those sports, in fact its very much adorn to.

    No. Just no. Rules are never black and white, theres always room for manipulation, i call that taking the game to it's limits. Nothing wrong in that, in competition, every bit of advantage counts. To say it's bad sportsmanship to take advantage is BS. That's called being overly generous.

    I happen to have worked for a company that sponsored the last two Canadian Opens, i can guarantee you that the image of the sport had absolutely no bearing on whether we were to sponsor or not.

    However for a bigger tournament, the reason why badminton gets so little sponsorship money is not because of scandals or lack there of, but rather because: THERE IS NO MONEY IN THIS SPORT. The majority of the fans of the sport do not live in first world countries or do they possess as much money as say North America, Australia etc. Most of the fans are from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, etc and of course China. China is a different market though, you're either filthy rich or dirty poor. So if you were a sponsor: would you rather invest your resources into a sport like basketball or badminton?

    Let me break it down for you:
    Basketball is watched around the globe: in poor countries and rich countries.
    Badminton is watched predominantly in Asia, but not so prominent in wealthier nations.

    So where would you put your money?

    Don't believe me? Look at our racquet recommendation/equipment section:
    Just look at all the posts that have something along the times of :
    "i need a new racquet, my budget is XX dollars"
    Or
    "i need durable strings, cause i can't afford to play with XX"

    While the actual playing costs are actually quite low already for badminton, many people still have trouble coming up with the means to play. That is the unfortunate state that badminton is in.
     
  17. cobalt

    cobalt Moderator

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    errrr. bad publicity does make sponsors think twice. It all depends on how bad the publicity is, and what the public's value system wil put up with at the time. Big sponsors have been known to withdraw sponsorships and endorsement deals even with megastars.

    Sponsorship for local or provincial events or even national events that don't attract a huge following, do not really affect anyone too much, as you rightly pointed out. Those are decisions taken on niche marketing or compassionate/passionate grounds, IMO. The criteria for events (OG, AG etc) will obviously be much different.

    Badminton can bring in the big money if it is managed correctly. But this does not have to be at the expense of fair play. This has been demonstrated in other sports in the last decade.
     
  18. BaggedCat

    BaggedCat Regular Member

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    rules are always grey. or LD would be disqualified for running off and celebrating before thanking his opponent and judges.

    4.1.2 Players must thank their opponents
    and Umpire before leaving the field of play to celebrate with their Coach or the crowd

    more grey that goes unpunished

    4.6 Trying to influence line judges
    Trying to influence the decision of line judges by arm, hand, or racket gestures, or orally.

    4.5 Failure to use best efforts
    could DQ the korean for saving his energy for the bronze match because he knew he couldnt beat LD

    Its all to do with interpretation of what is "honourable and sportsmanlike in rule 4.1.1"

    is it sportsmanlike to give yourself the best chances of winning a medal-yes
    was their behaviour honourable-probably not. but the format was asking them to shoot themselves in the foot.
     
    #378 BaggedCat, Aug 10, 2012
    Last edited: Aug 10, 2012
  19. craigandy

    craigandy Regular Member

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    Haha the quote of mine was "No grey areas within the context of this example." The example that was being referenced was the blatant not using best efforts and bringing sport into disrepute in the games in oly's. You can't just crop a couple of words out of a sentence then argue it when that wasn't my point. Having said all that how is 4.1.2 grey? not enforced maybe but not grey, same with 4.6. 4.5 I agree it is pretty grey but not when referencing the china vs Korea match in oly, if you get caught the rules are there in black and white but it's the getting caught part that is normally grey in 4.5. As i have said previously in this thread(before this incident) 4.5 is almost unenforcable and a near impossible rule to break. Turns out 8 muppets managed it quite easy. In my defense, I never thought I would see people be as stupid to push it so far as to purposely serving out etc.
     
  20. craigandy

    craigandy Regular Member

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    Cricket, soccer, snooker for starters (massive outrage and punishments over the years in these sports).
    with regards to sponsorship, I can't state it clearer than Cobalt.
     

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