Gov't calls on Badminton Korea Association to scrap rule restricting players from international contest
Published: 10 Sep. 2024, 16:06
Updated: 11 Sep. 2024, 18:56
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- PAIK JI-HWAN
- paik.jihwan@joongang.co.kr
![Director General for Sports Lee Jung-woo from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism speaks during a briefing at Government Complex Seoul in central Seoul on Tuesday. [NEWS1]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2024/09/11/f7f2fb07-6efb-40c6-9404-e186cc770e8a.jpg)
Director General for Sports Lee Jung-woo from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism speaks during a briefing at Government Complex Seoul in central Seoul on Tuesday. [NEWS1]
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism called on the Badminton Korea Association (BKA) to scrap a rule that prevents non-national team players from playing in international tournaments as part of an ongoing probe that also exposed inconsistencies in funding, discriminatory practices within the business leagues and evidence of officials breaking their own policies to receive kickbacks.
Director General for Sports Lee Jung-woo said during a briefing at Government Complex Seoul in central Seoul on Tuesday that the ministry advises the BKA to remove a policy that prevents the majority of Korean badminton players from competing at international tournaments.
The BKA rule, created in 2016, stipulates that only badminton players who have competed for the national team for five years and have reached the required age — 28 for men and 27 for women — are able to play in international tournaments operated by the Badminton World Federation, badminton's global governing body.
“No other of the 44 sports that are represented in the Olympics or Asian Games prevent non-national team players from participating in international tournaments,” Lee said. “As hindering players’ participation in international tournaments excessively limits their personal freedom, the ministry calls on the association to scrap that rule.”
Lee's remarks came at a press conference Tuesday to update the media on an ongoing ministry investigation into the BKA that began after Olympic gold medalist An Se-young publicly called out the association minutes after winning the women's competition at the Porte de La Chapelle Arena in Paris last month. An criticized the BKA for being overly controlling of athletes and limiting where and for whom they can compete, and for mismanaging her recovery from an injury last year.
![Korea's An Se-young competes in the gold medal women's singles badminton match at the Paris Olympics in Paris on Aug. 5. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2024/09/11/90a84cfb-543e-4653-b197-6e06c79d5324.jpg)
Korea's An Se-young competes in the gold medal women's singles badminton match at the Paris Olympics in Paris on Aug. 5. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]
The accusations sent shockwaves through the Korean sports world, as much because An had spoken out publicly about the issues as because of the issues themselves. The ministry subsequently launched a probe into the BKA on Aug. 11 and have since interviewed 22 players, including An, that compete for the national team.
Lee did not discuss whether he has discovered any issues in how the BKA handled An or any other players’ injuries on Tuesday, but said that he will speak with more players and the association and devise an appropriate way to resolve the issue.
But he did say that the ministry had discovered multiple problems within the BKA during its probe so far, including that players were not only unaware that they were eligible to receive prize money from association sponsors for their achievements at international tournaments, but also that the association appeared to be pocketing all of that prize money.
“In the past, apart from [fund] distribution, national team players were able to personally receive prize money from sponsors after posting good results at international competitions, but the current rule stipulates that the association takes all the money,” Lee said. “The national team players were not aware of this rule at all. The ministry will discover facts from association officials and come up with a plan after understanding the association’s overall prize money distribution system and comparing the system to other sports.”
The ministry discovered that the BKA had edited its own rules in June 2021 to remove a policy that required the association to give 20 percent of funds to national team players.
Regarding the association’s squad selection for doubles teams, Lee said that national team players voiced their opinion on revising the current method for doubles teams squad selection.
Players’ performances are the only factor that the association considers for picking players for singles contests, but for doubles matches, performance accounts for 70 percent and the other 30 percent comes from evaluation by association members.
Performance is the only factor that plays a role in national team selection in 11 out of 12 sports that have doubles contests from the Olympics or Asiad, according to the ministry. Again, badminton is the only outlier.
The ministry also pointed out that a salary gap exists among semi-professional players that compete for business teams — the higest level of league badminton in Korea — with those that have a university education paid higher, and that contracts for business team players are unnecessarily long.
Players with a high school degree that join a business team have to play for that team for seven years while earning a maximum of 100 miilon won ($74,000) during their contract period, while those with a bachelors degree have to play for their team for five years with a maximum of 150 million won over that period.
The ministry said that national team members from business teams should not face salary discrimination and their contracts should also be shortened.
The ministry additionally found several incidences of badminton association board members breaking the association’s own rules.
Board members are not allowed to receive any incentive fees, according to the association’s rules, but the ministry discovered that some members took a certain amount of money for their involvement in hosting sponsors for international events in Korea.
A BKA board member received 30 million won ($22,000) for hosting a sponsor for the 2023 BWF World Senior Championships in 2023, according to a document released by the ministry.
Lee said the ministry will finish the ongoing probe and announce its results by the end of this month.
BY PAIK JI-HWAN [paik.jihwan@joongang.co.kr]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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