Organisers reject South Korea's appeal

An appeal from South Korea over the expulsion of two pairs from the London 2012 women’s doubles competition has been rejected.

The Badminton World Federation also announced that Indonesia withdrew an appeal against their disqualification.

The Chinese top seeds, the two pairs from South Korea and the one from Indonesia deliberately played to lose in an attempt to manipulate the quarter-final draw at Wembley Arena last night, it has been claimed.

All eight players have now been disqualified.

Their places in the last eight will be taken by the pairs who finished third and fourth in the qualifying groups concerned.

BWF Secretary general Thomas Lund said: “The decision was to reject the case, thereby the decision from this morning stands.”

All four pairs were booed as they deliberately lost points by serving into the net or hitting wide.

They were later charged by the BWF with “not using one’s best efforts to win a match” and “conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport”.

Lund said: “It has been a very long proceeding but it is something we have dealt with swiftly.

“It was a very important issue to deal with swiftly and to make sure due process was taken in a way that took in the best interests of the players.”

The pairs to be reinstated were from Russia, Canada, Australia and South Africa and all were due to play in the quarter-finals this evening.

Lund, speaking at a packed press conference, pointed out the reinstated pairs had been kept fully aware of developments in case they were recalled at short notice.

He said: “We warned all the players in the two groups involved that they would possibly have to play today.

“They were always kept informed so they could prepare themselves in the best way possible.”

The decision to introduce a group stage to the competition, rather than hold a straight knockout, has attracted criticism which will be evaluated.

Lund said: “The group phase has generally been a tremendous success for this tournament.

“It has created really good matches, really good stories and a lot of matches we have never seen before.

“But we also have to be clear there has been a problem here.

“We need to take that problem very seriously and that will go into the debriefing at the end of these Olympic Games.”