you will now see this picture in the badmintonbladet.dk website (as in demolidor's post). But yesterday, for a few hours, they had your thigh picture instead. But for unknown reason, after kwun's post, they changed the photo to the one you now see.
So there was a report about the picture shown with Mogensen refusing to shake the hand of Rene Toft, who is obviously at odds with the 5 players being kicked out. I don't like Mogensen much, and think he's a bit uhm.... bit of a prick. He definitely could have been a bit more tactful, and just shook his hand, burning bridges just always seem like a bad idea. At the same time, Rene Toft too could have easily seen this coming and avoided the always passive aggressive confrontation (didn't really think this was possible), of forcing a handshake with a player he's clearly at odds with. I don't fault Mogensen much, but before we know all the details about who's actually at fault for this whole "battle of the danish butter cookies" debacle, there really is no point picking sides. What can be easily said is that both sides can't do without each other, and they're just making a mess of the entire situation. Personally, the 5 players don't seem like the type to be the easiest to work with, but simultaneously Badminton Denmark really seems to be screwing themselves out of their few competitive players left.
As far as I can tell if this situation did arise and BoMo were the only Den pair in the top 16 then DBA would not automatically be able to send their 2nd pair, but they would have to decline BoMo's quota place, and hope their 2nd pair qualify through the reallocation process. Or have I misunderstood the process?
It's quite the mess, but should provide for some interesting drama ahead as it all plays out. It might be that Carston has some other issues with Toft, being either he is an outright liar or a completely oblivious idiot. Rene Toft seems to have partnered the national team with a company that has been out of favour with the Danish Royal family over use of the Danish crown in their packaging. His claim in that he didn't know when he was signing the deal, and learned of it just recently. LOL! http://ekstrabladet.dk/sport/anden_...pillere-advarede-om-kongehus-konflikt/5534087
Joachim Fischer also hesitated to shake his hand but he did it in the end. But he still gave Toft a weird look though. It seems that there really is a lot of bad blood between the players and the federation. Too bad badminton isn't as professional as tennis. It is very very hard for independent players, especially outside of Asia.
Toft is probably gonna be not well liked by the Danish general public for selling out his country and association to a foreign national that happens to be in lawsuit with their beloved cookie company.
For better or worse, the thighs were cropped out in that photo, only the mid section with the two cans, and maybe a glimpse of ......
On one hand, DBF was less than diligent when choosing its partner who may be viewed as an impostor. On the other hand, DBF was desperate to find a sponsor for all its players and the white can must have looked like a white knight in that moment of desperation. It is customary for all athletes in all sports to wear the national team uniform with the logo of the team sponsor, regardless of their own allegiance when not playing for the national team. For some puzzling reasons, those players signed a sponsorship contract with a very unusual provision that allows them to wear the national uniform with any logo but that of the sponsor's competitor. That provision would get those players and DBF in trouble under one and only one scenario. Unfortunate for those players and DBF, that very scenario became the reality. This may be something for case study in business schools for years to come.
tennis players are so wealthy independently, they don't need to listen to the national associations. so screw them if they want us to play Davis Cup. and here neither party wants to part with their money. unfortunately, in the end, money talks.
Morten Frost on the incident: http://www.thestar.com.my/Sport/Badminton/2015/04/25/Denmark-drop-top-players/
Sad news about DBA Well from the looks of it, it seems that this issue cannot be solved at any time any moment so I just hope that good things will eventually come out of it. It is indeed sad to see the top badminton players in Denmark cannot play in tournaments. So sad.
Unfortunately for the players, playing tournaments and appearing on TV is one of the core components to their duty to advertise for their sponsoring brands. They all get paid top dollars by brand because they are public figures and they continue to get media attention by playing and more importantly keep winning. Without the DBA, the infamous five cannot compete as DBA is the sole authority on who they choose to submit as competition to tournaments (i'm not sure if this is strictly nation representing tournaments e.g. surdirman cup/ Olympic games or includes Super Series too). While some may argue that the reverse is true, that DBA also depends on their players to keep their reputation as a powerhouse in the world of badminton, players have no explicit jurisdiction over the authority. DBA will lose over half of their top tier players, but it doesn't mean that they're hurting nearly as much as the players. Men's doubles still quite strongly represented by the Mads duo and Pieler-Kolding can easily reshuffle with another partner for a fairly strong combination. As far as I am concerned, the national body is doing everything right. DBA may not have done the most popular choice, but it is the administrative body for badminton in Denmark, and have to reaffirm to its players that personal sponsorships cannot conflict with entire body. Maybe it is a little foolish for them to drop their golden geese, and while they don't have plenty of champions just sitting on the side line like many asian nations do, they do have plenty more young hopefuls that can fully utilize the freed up funds. Whether you like to admit it or not, the players fired are all in their 30s and essentially on their way out after 2016 Rio anyway. While it's not ideal to have top players exit all at once, it would have happened in the near future regardless. Without the 5, DBA's bid for any medals is only realistically only staying with Men's singles (even then it's fairly slim as Jan or Viktor are good, but in the face of Chen Long, Lin Dan and hopefully Lee Chong Wei, they don't have an easy fight).
The Olympics would be an interesting case point. There are very strict rules on the sponsorship. I can't check youtube on the logos of players from last olympics but personal sponsorship should not be allowed. If so, any Danish player with a high enough ranking should be eligible whether they are or are not within DBA. Mind you, whether DBA selects them is another matter. In Malaysia, there was an independent men doubles pair who were ranked third Malaysian pair in international rankings. But BAM chose to register their own 4th ranked pair for the world championships instead. That definitely was stupid.
Very sad to see this happening to the Denmark team. Very sad. I just hope that the sponsorship problem can be resolved as soon as possible and hope that the 5 old good players can play. Please can't the DBA do something about it to resolve this problem? Why all this have to happen now?
What !!!!! [h=1]5 top Danes excluded from national team[/h]By Raphael Sachetat – – April 17, 2015Posted in: News On Friday, 5 top shuttlers from Denmark were asked to leave the National Training Centre after a conflict appeared regarding their individual sponsors and the team sponsor,which are direct competitors in the same market. According to an announcement posted this afternoon on two pairs’ official Facebook pages, Mathias Boe, Carsten Mogensen (pictured), Joachim Fischer Nielsen, Kamilla Rytter Juhl and Christinna Pedersen, the five players were notified that they could not play for Denmark for the upcoming Sudirman Cup, and that they were aslo asked to leave the national team and that all funding from Badminton Denmark would stop. “We have told the association that due to this really unlucky circumstance, that we can’t play with Danisa on the shirt, but have to play in a shirt WITHOUT ANY logos. As a compensation, we offered them a lot of options, they could sell us to other sponsors, we could do an exhibition for them for free, we even offered them 50.000 Danish Kr. 7000 USD. They refused all suggestions, but not only didn’t they not call us up for the Sudirman Cup, they also kicked us out of the national team, and have taken all our fundings. Why this ultimate punishment?” it reads on the players’ pages. Rene Toft, the President of Badminton Denmark, told Denmark’s TV2 it was not acceptable for players to break the collective agreement by entering personal contracts that are contrary to it. He further said that the players’ failure to rectify the conflict meant that the association had to stop cooperating with them. This comes at a bad time for Boe, Mogensen, but also Kamilla Rytter-Juhl, Christinna Pedersen and Joachim Fischer-Nielsen (pictured), who were ready to compete in the World Mixed Team Championships, and mostly, about to enter the qualification period for the Rio Olympic Games. Should this conflict continue and if no solution can be found, it will be a difficult quest for the 5 Danes to get their Olympic qualifications, especially as the national associations are the ones who send the players’ applications for tournaments, and who eventually can chose between eligible pairs who would get to go to the Olympics, regardless of their respective world ranking. A few weeks ago, Spain had known similar problems, and sponsorship conflicts have hit the Netherlands in the past as well. The five Danish players have been included on the entry lists for the Australian Open, which is scheduled for after the Sudirman Cup, but time will tell whether the dispute will affect their travel plans or entries in future tournaments. How on earth was this allowed to happen (if its true of course)? What is the back story to this? Surely the National association AND the players sponsors must have been aware that this situation was likely to arise, so what happened to the discussions the resolve it Also could the players not claim restraint of trade if the NT refuses to enter them for events and OG
I think DBA might face an immense amount of public scrutiny if they choose to exclude the players come Olympic team selection in favor of DBA players. As the terminated players are consistently world top 5, I'm going to safely assume that they'll continue to be the highest ranking combinations Denmark will have come Olympics next year also. Even BAM gets ripped to shreds (They get ripped on all the time pretty much) for placing their 4th pair over 3rd pair, and lets be realistic, neither pair were really going to win the WC anyway. If DBA chose to exclude Olympic medal hopefuls, and they have an excellent track record of olympic medal (2 medals between 3 pairs), they aren't only going to be stupid, I dare say they'll be digging their own grave. Since the player's status is so high, I'm quite optimistic about seeing them resolve the matter in the near future. The entire debacle seems like a clash of egos to me, both parties thinking they are larger than the other. The only thing that is clear about the entire situation is that a compromise needs to be reached. Without both sides compromising, really it's a lose-lose-lose situation, the players, DBA and spectators.
The players can give up their cookie sponsorship or DBA give up their cookie sponsordhip. If you were the player, what would you do? If you were DBA, what would you do?
It seems that one or both the sponsors have to step in and agreed that (a) Danisa will allow those five to wear their individual sponsor logo during the event or (b) Kjeldsen agreeing to allow the five to wear Danisa logo during the event; or (c) the players play without any sponsorship logos. I can't see Danisa agreeing to (a) or (c) and either can I see Kjeldsen agreeing to (b) or (c) given that they both paid sponsorship money. I guess DBA could have avoided all this by approaching Kjeldsen to match Danisa's proposed sponsorship or even have a different non-competitor sponsor to Kjeldsen. In the end, it's the players who loses
