BWF's secretary general Thomas Lund
PETALING JAYA: No one is forced to play when they are injured.
The Badminton World Federation (BWF) acknowledge an issue raised by two-time Olympic Games men's singles champion Viktor Axelsen of Denmark regarding their top players' commitment rule.
The rule requires players to show up for selected tournaments and failure to do so, will see them served a fine of US$5,000.
BWF secretary general Thomas Lund understands the predicament of Axelsen, who is unique, as he is a professional player.
"This statement is specifically in relation to Viktor Axelsen and his circumstances. We of course acknowledge that Axelsen is on a different spectrum in terms of earnings compared to other players," said Lund.
"However, the principles outlined in our statement regarding their responsibility to the Tour is the same for all top players.
Lund said the rule highlighted by Axelsen has been there for more than 10 years.
"We are not able to comment on concrete factual matters concerning injuries and medical conditions of players, as this is considered private and confidential between a player and the BWF," said Lund.
"The rule referred by Viktor requires top players to be committed to participate in a minimum number of tournaments throughout a 52-week period. This applies to the World Tour Finals, Super 1000, Super 750, and up to two Super 500 tournaments, which amounts to obligations in 13 out of 52 weeks of the year.
"This does not force players to play when injured, as the term “participate” in a tournament, in practice, does not mean that a player has to actively play on court, but only means that as a minimum they need to show up for 1-2 days during the highest-level tournaments to support media and commercial activities around the tournament.
"If the player attends the tournament, then the player has fulfilled all their obligations.
"If a player is physically not able to travel (e.g., in cases of very serious injury, surgery or similar where it is not considered medically reasonable for them to travel) the BWF will issue an exemption from not participating, and no further consequences apply.
"Only in cases where a player is medically capable of travelling but decides not to appear and participate in the minimum media/commercial activities to support the tournament, will the player be charged US$5,000 for non-participation.
Lund said that the rules were in place to ensure the commercial viability of the event and to guarantee top player presence in the highest prize money tournaments, which is also common in many other sports.
"Such rules are part of ensuring that the top players are consistently part of the annual World Tour whereby they have the possibility to earn significant amounts of prize money on top of their own sponsorship endorsements, which in many cases amount to millions of dollars for each player.
"The charge of US$5,000 should be seen in the context of the significant earnings a player like Axelsen has accumulated from being part of a substantial commercial badminton setup where one of the key objectives is to provide prize money and commercial opportunities for players to support their livelihoods.
Lund said they had never forced a player to play.
"To safeguard the players, the BWF leave it entirely up to each player to decide if they can play or not, and, therefore, there are no obligations to force them to play. The BWF recognise that players should not in any way be forced to play with an injury.
"BWF similarly have regulations to protect top players with long-term injuries through protected ranking regulations, which is in recognition of the shared interest between all parties to have players take care of their physical and mental health and compete on the badminton circuit for as many years as possible.
"BWF are certain that Axelsen is well aware of the regulations and the way these are managed in practice, but we are not able to understand or speculate on why he wishes to question the intentions around the regulations.
"The BWF do not share this view and remains confident that the regulations are set up in the best interest of all players to ensure a professional circuit with significant earning opportunities, while still protecting players’ physical and mental health," added Lund.
