Kuala Lumpur: The decision of the Badminton World Federation (BWF) to impose a lifetime suspension on a Malaysian involved in match-fixing should be used as a lesson to the Malaysian national players so that they are not getting caught in the scandal.
President of the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM), Mohamad Norza Zakaria stressed that the action taken against the individual involved was an appropriate step in curbing the illegal activity from further tarnishing the image of badminton.
He said the decision of the suspension was also a huge lesson to the players to not repeating the same mistakes made by two former national players, Zulfadli Zulkiffli and Tan Chung Seang who were previously sentenced to 20 and 15 years respectively by the BWF for being involved in match-fixing issues.
“We hope this BWF action could a warning to our players so that whatever we do, should not use shortcuts to seek wealth and profit. We want to make sure the competition in the sport of badminton should be held in a healthy way,” said Zakaria.
He said this to reporters after chairing the 75th BAM Annual General Meeting at the Malaysian Badminton Academy, Bukit Kiara, on Saturday.
“We were shocked and disappointed with what happened, but this showed that BWF was serious about dealing with these unhealthy activities in badminton,” said Zakaria.
“However, it does not involve any players from Malaysia national squad and we hope this would be the last time individuals from Malaysia are involved in this type of matter,” added Zakaria.
On Friday, BWF published a statement revealed that BWF’s independent hearing panel has decided to impose lifetime suspension on an executive of a Malaysian sports equipment company for attempting to manipulate matches.
BWF said it has been investigating that citizen of Malaysia since the 2014 Japan Open.
