China team withdrew from SS Final

WINNING should be of lesser importance than PARTICIPATION

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matthewteng ... You could be correct because the reason for the Chinese team to skip the 2008 SSF, the 2009 MO and the 2009 KO is for their training.

But from what I see, many of us at Badminton Central are saying that 'WINNING should be of lesser importance than PARTICIPATION'.

Anyway, let's hope that CHN can show us better performances after their training.
If it can help to promote Badminton, I am all for it.


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This is a typical article written by people who has no idea about CHN team / system / culture. To be worse, it's just a one sided slapping, without carefully thinking about the other side of the story.

Sure, you can use 10 pages to blast CHN athletes do not deserve this or that treatment within the team, but what about the "OG rules" (yeah, I mentioned that in 2000 threads, and i will continue to mention, until it's changed). You want all the good players to play this open or that final, but at the end, you strip their rights to even participate OG. How strong an argument you can support? At least there's KO or MO every year. But the OG is every 4 years.

Sure, Zhou Mi might only got a Broze in 2004. Ask XXF and XXZ, they did not even get to Athens to play. All they can do is to watch the matches between ranking 50+ players on stage. Ask Chen Yu, this poor guy was never even in the "selection process". If you think CHN got treat unfairly in their team, what you think they face in the "wonderful, honest, fair" "outside world"?

Wonderful world...

 

If I have $500K and want to set up a tournament in San Jose and want to see LD, TH and LYD play, I can't ask BWF to punish them if they are not interested. Isn't it the organizers' job to find a way to attract the best players? Sure the sponsors may think twice next year before sponsoring this tournament. But if the players don't care, why we care. If there is no SS Final next year, will it hurt badminton? Probably not much as long as there are AE, OG and World Champion that players are eager to win. Just like Tennis Master Cup, most top players want to take a rest at the end of the year - end up making excuse or just treat it as an exhibition.

 

Personally I believe that the decision to withdraw all of the Chinese players from the SS finals is disgraceful and the Chines Badminton Federation should be fined a large sum of money.

There should be no penalties imposed upon the players as they are clearly under orders.

Whn the SS were set up some 2 years or more ago it was well advertised at the time that it was the intention to hold the 12 events followed by a Final involving the top players.

A major sponsor was found by BWF and they financed the first 6 events of the 2007 SS events. For reasons unknown to me they pulled out without much notice leaving BWF with a decision to make.

1. Continue with the other 6 events paying the prize money to players from BWF funds while seeking to find a further sponsor.

2. Scrap the events

BWF took the decision to hold the rest of the events durring 2007 as much of the preliminary work had already been done by the respective Federations towards organising the Events. However a decision was made to not hold the 2007 SS Finals.

A the start of the 2008 year BWF once again funded the first few of the SS Events and continued to seek a major sponsor for the rest of the year and the subsequent SS Finals.

Presumably a sponsor was found and part of the reason why a sponsor was found was that the World's top players would be taking part i.e. including the Chinese players who have qualified.

Can you imagine that this sponsor would have agreed to provide the funds withot the Chinese taking part?? I cannot.

Given that the Chinese Federation must have known what was going to be expected of their players well before the withdrawal of the team and to leave the decision to pull out until the last minute is disrespectful to BWF and other players who have been asked to complete at the last minute.

Choo Wong Hann from Malaysia was winning a European circuit in Italy on Friday and suddenly finds that he has to be back in Malaysia by Tuesday as he has now qualified to take part in the SS!!!!!!!!!!!! Great preparation.

The Chinese Federation cannot even come up with the excuse of lack of funds as BWF were going to pay Air Fares etc to all competitors who attend the event.

 

The problem is not that the players don't care....its the national association that "don't care" and decree that none of their player should participates. Big difference there.

 

Be fair, people. Neither BWF nor the Chinese Team is blameless here.

You can't just demand Chinese Team participation while scheming to death to limit their success. Switch position and see how you feel. Talk about respect

While I think the Chinese team should make a better effort to attend, given that most players are either more-or-less injured or already going into shut-down mode, avoiding further injury is not an unreasonable explanation.

Winter training is a long time tradition for Chinese athletes. It is not an excuse in any way. Their participation during this period is more exception than the rule.

As I said, if the grand finale is so damned important, put it on the table early and work towards it. Don't make it a last minute thing. How respectful does it look? Also, either make this a paid vacation with some exhibition matches or make this a proper competition with big money and ranking points.

 

There is a system of fining players/authorities for late withdrawals. Has CHN broken these rules. If not I cannot see how they can be punished. They are not compelled to competing in these events - it is optional.

As for the badzine article I tend to agree with LB partially. The article is one sided. As I and we have mentioned over and over badminton is a subsidised sport wherby governments/businesses support players with funding to train, live & play. If they decide not to fund these people then the players cannot play. The chinese players are tremendous athletes & the best players as badzine states, but who made them this - the CBA and authoritarian as it may be they have the right to not enter them and/or pull out.

Until badminton offers prize money or individuals can get personal sponsorships to control their own affairs we will just keep discussing these things.

 

why don't they just put the WC back in Bi-annual and use that space to put the grand final every other year, that way it still makes it more prestigious, and at the same time, create space for it with plenty of notice and time for athletes to prepare and train =\

 

Instead of holding a grand finale, spend the money on a goodwill tour of top players and local players to various parts of world. This will do more to promote the game than holding another tournament in places where badminton is already popular.

This would also demand extra efforts from the players. But the benefits should be easy to understand for players, associations, and sponsors.

 

I don't even understand how it can make badminton more popular by having this so-called big event SSF???

The event is hosted in Asia, only broadcasted in Asia(may be Denmark, but that's about it)...
Other oversea fans have to watch it through livestream or download... so if you are not already a fan of badminton(oversea), you are not going to go through all of that trouble, just to watch something that you are not already interested in, right???

So people who blame China for not helping to make badminton more popular by competing in this event are just looking for an excuse to bad mouth China as usual... This event is not going to make badminton any more popular outside of Asia at all. China can even send Li YongBo to compete in this event, and it is not going to make any difference to anybody who is not already a fan of badminton.

Badminton will forever remain as an Asian sport, unless they actually do something to change its image from being a sissy sport to a mainstream sport whether you people like it or not.

If you don't believe me, just ask people from some European countries(except Denmark), any African, and any North/South American countries, how they feel about a badminton player with say a football player.

 

For the ppl who's yelling their lungs out about "CHN not promoting badminton", and asking LYB / BWF, etc to learn from basketball, tennis, etc...

Let me ask you, did you voice your concern when almost no top tennis stars care about playing OG tennis, simply because there's no $$$ and no ranking point awarded? Did you blame Kobe, KG, etc who previously decide not to play for Team USA, because they are married, being sued, injured, not interested, busy doing their own trade, etc?

So, if the mega stars in other sports can pick and choose (so do their coaches, as the NBA coaches blame their stars are worned out or even injuried during international basketball), then why CHN is single handed being picked here for not participate in certain events? If other sports stars carefully value their own interests over others, why CHN badminton team has to be judged by the god standard?

 

I never heard any tennis stars or basketball stars being fined, if they decide not to participate in OG (which offers no ranking point or $$$, and have a chance to be injured and put their $$$ contract and career on the line), for example. So, why you want to fine CHN?

I never heard tennis fans blaming xxx or yyy about how they "not promoting tennis" (in OG) despite being world rank top 10. Remember, promoting a sports take everyone's effort, not 1 player, 1 team or 1 event.

 

Use your same tone, and try to read this:

Given that the BWF must have known who was a better player, well before OG, and leave the ranking 70 or even 100 players on stage, but kicking out players like XXF, XXZ, CH, CY, WYH, WL, ZTT, etc from OG participation list, is very dispectful for the players, their respect teams, and the sports in general.

 

For over 2000 times, I never said CHN is the only victim of the OG rules. Thanks for your example, now we know even more. So, isn't that's exactly the point I am trying to give, as such rules should be removed, if that impact such a lot of players / teams, and in such many sports?

Remember, if a victim decides to shut his mouth, and swallow the pain for whatever reason, does NOT mean the crime never happens. You might be ok with the rule, but others might not. Yeah, you can mention that whatever team (in badminton) also got effected, but clearly, CHN got the most impact at least for the recent OGs. I can not remember any other team, have their WC champion and runner up and 1 or 2 top 10 players / pairs being shut out of the OG in recent years.

Yeah, we should feel great if we can attract more sponsorship. However, the players / teams are not slaves. If they do not feel like to participate (whether by a vote, or 1 person's voice), they have the rights to do so. You can not use 1 team to compare to another. Same as i do not want to use team CHN's recent years of success to poke others nerves.

Again, if we do not blame mega stars from tennis or basketball to not participate OG, why do we have rights to blame the badminton players for any given event?

 

This is getting ridiculous.

So, if I tell Kobe, KG, LBJ that I can pay for their air fare to play my local club tournament, they have to show up? Because, they have tons of $$$, and they need to help to promote basketball as a sport? If they do not, I can fine their NBA teams, blasting them on internet, as they did not "take the responsibility"???

Having $$$ is 1 thing, how to spend it or whether to spend it on task x or y or z, it's none of your business, right?