BWF plays down no confidence vote in president

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 19 (Reuters) Badminton World Federation leaders played down today the vote of no confidence against their South Korean president Dr Kang Young-joong at a council meeting the day before and rejected comments he made to media.

Dr Kang, who is halfway through his four-year term, has quit his duties for the time being, but not before launching a fierce attack on the BWF and his deputy, Malaysian Punch Gunalan.

He told a media conference on Saturday that Gunalan had usurped the president's position and that of the chief operating officer who was dismissed last month.

He maintained the BWF had spiralled downwards through a ''dictatorship by democracy'' and its executive council had become the ''personal kingdom'' of a select few with the position of president reduced to a ceremonial role.

Gunalan, 63, flanked by four senior BWF council members at a media conference, today, denied usurping any role and said a new COO should be in place by December.

BWF Asia chairman VK Verma told reporters too much had been made out of what happened.

''When you own a business or company you can take decisions the way you want to but when you run a democratically elected autonomous body run by 24 individuals with their own wisdom and experience then the leader has to be cautious.

''He has to respect the majority. This is precisely what was going wrong in the last six to eight months.'' Yesterday, Kang had suggested the rift at the top could even jeopardise the future of badminton as an Olympic sport after 2012.

But Verma said: ''It (the no-confidence vote) does not mean that the BWF has fallen apart or that it has come to a very shameless junction where its integrity, its position within the IOC framework is in doubt.

''If there is a dispute in a family you take the liberty of telling the head of the family this is where you are going wrong and we do not trust you and like the way you are running the board.'' The open split at the top of the sport's governing body came on the final weekend of the world chanpionships which ended on Sunday with three golds for China and two for Indonesia.

REUTERS SSC RK2105