Badminton Asia chief on Friday denied that teams in the region were to be blamed for the postponement of the
Thomas and Uber Cup, which followed a series of pull-outs over coronavirus
fears. Badminton Asia chief operating officer Saw Chit Boon said the Asian
teams weren’t trying to “make life difficult”, AFP quoted reports.

Indonesia,
Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea and Australia all withdrew before the men’s and
women’s world team championships, which were set to kick off badminton’s
restart next month, were shelved.

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The Badminton World
Federation said it was unable to deliver a high enough level of competition
following the withdrawals. Many of the world’s top players are from Asia.

“I think it is the
right and prerogative of every participating country to decide if they want to
travel to play or not,” he told media at an event in Kuala Lumpur, according
to The Star on Thursday.

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“There are lots of things to be taken into
consideration because each country imposes different SOP (standard operating
procedures), rules and conditions for their citizens travelling abroad.”

“So I do not
think this is about the Asian countries pulling out just to make life difficult
for everybody,” added Saw. “These claims emerged because Denmark
happened to be the hosts. Will the same be said if an Asian country hosted the
event?”

International
badminton has been on hold since March over the pandemic. Next month’s Denmark
Open is the only top-level event confirmed on this year’s re-jigged calendar. The
Thomas and Uber Cup has now been postponed three times, and will not take place
before next year.

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Denmark’s world number three Anders Antonsen warned that the
sport will “wither away and die” if tournaments don’t return soon.

“Are we sitting
around waiting for a vaccine to come before badminton can start up again?”
he wrote on Instagram. “Make the best and safest set-up you possibly can
and run the tournaments. Whoever attends, attends. Otherwise, the sport will
wither away and die.”