BWF Responds To All England 2024 Manipulative Draw Accusations

BWF is accused of carrying out a manipulative draw for All England 2024 (doc. Special).

JAKARTA The International Badminton Federation (BWF) has responded to accusations by Malaysia's men's doubles player, Aaron Chia, regarding the manipulative draw at All England 2024.

Aaron Chia, who is paired with Soh Wooi Yik, criticized the draw results which immediately brought them together with compatriot Goh Sze Fei/Nur Izzuddin.

"The draw process for the BWF World Tour tournament is carried out through a software system, completely random according to the parameters of the respective tournament level regulations. Each draw is approved by the tournament referee," the BWF statement was reported by the New Straits Times.

"This is the same process for all draw except manual draw is done for group game competition," the statement continued.

Aaron Chia is not the first Malaysian badminton player to complain about the draw from the world badminton body.

In January 2020, 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic silver medalist Goh V Shem also criticized Aaron/Soh in the first round.

Goh admitted that throughout 2019, they faced Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi four times, three of which occurred in the first round.

At the Malaysia Open 2024 last month, Chinese badminton player Liu Yu Chen, through his social media accounts, also criticized BWF. He questioned whether the draw results for a tournament were carried out fairly.

The impact of meeting two pairs of the same nationality in the early stages could eliminate the chances of one of the pairs to secure a fairly large ranking point in a tournament.

The points collected over the past four months are becoming increasingly important because they are included in the calculation for the 2024 Paris Olympics qualifiers.

In 2019, China's government news agency Xinhua reported that 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic champion Chen Long was angry at having to fight his compatriot, Lin Dan, in the first round of the China Open. He called for the draw to be published.

The BWF draw system has also drawn criticism from badminton player Anders Antonsen from Denmark. The criticism was written by Antonsen through his Facebook social media.

"It was seen many times that the players faced the same opponent repeatedly in the first half, second half, and quarter-finals," he wrote.