It has been revealed that the Korea Badminton Association took disciplinary action against national team member Choi Sol-gyu (28-Yonex) for missing training.
According to the Korea Badminton Association on Friday, the Performance Improvement Committee decided to suspend Choi from the national team for two years in October, but recently reversed the decision.
Initially, the committee voted to recommend the two-year suspension to the board of directors, but it was reconsidered after some argued that the punishment was too severe.
Since then, Choi has communicated his intention to retire from the national team, and the board reportedly decided that disciplinary action was no longer effective.
“We all agreed that we had no choice but to sanction him for his inappropriate behavior as a national team member,” the association said, adding, “Although he did not submit a retirement application (at the time), we did not take any other action considering that he submitted a document stating that he would not participate in next year’s national team selection.”
Choi also reportedly missed training the next day after drinking alcohol at the BWF World Tour Super 500 Korea Open in July and brought his girlfriend to the national team’s accommodation.
At the time, he was not competing in the tournament due to an injury to his doubles partner Kim Won-ho.
The situation became complicated when Choi still hadn’t officially submitted his retirement papers to the federation. The federation, which thought Choi was retiring, lost the basis for overturning the disciplinary action.
An association official said, “We have communicated our intention to send his retirement documents several times, but no letter has been sent.”
This raises the question of whether the federation should have been principled from the start and taken reasonable measures against the player. It could also be argued that it took three months after the grounds for disciplinary action to begin the process in earnest.
Choi competed at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, which kicked off in September, and won a silver medal in the men’s doubles event.
“We gave him a chance until the (Hangzhou) Asian Games after interviewing him,” an association official said, “but we excluded him from training at the Jincheon Athletes’ Village.” 슬롯게이밍