Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian media Astro Arena reported on Monday that the reigning All England champion and World No. 7 men’s singles player – Lee Zii Jia had a face-to-face meeting with the management of the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) at the Academy Badminton Malaysia (ABM), Bukit Kiara on Monday. It’s believed that Lee wanted to quit BAM and become an independent player.
The Astro Arena journalist – Syakirah Zulkfly said that she was originally going to ABM to get the latest development of BAM in terms of what’s their goals for future tournaments such as Syed Modi India International and also the Asian Team Championships, especially when the 2022 India Open just ended last Sunday.
“I was informed that three meetings were going on in BAM. The first meeting was about the development of junior players; the second was the meeting between Lee Zii Jia and BAM. This was the first time Lee met with BAM since the news broke a few weeks ago that Zii Jia intended to turn professional; the third meeting was an emergency meeting where BAM had invited all council members from all states to join the meeting,” said Zulkfly.
“The third meeting seemed to involve a very serious matter and I could tell it was about something big,” added Zulkfly.
“From what I noticed, at first, Zii Jia left his training to go to the meeting. And then, he came back to training. After about one hour, he was called back to the meeting again. This time, he went to the meeting with his sister. I am not sure if Lee had tendered his resignation,” continued Zulkfly.
“Another sign that I could tell this is going to be something big was the Minister of Youth and Sports had been notified about this matter,” explained Zulkfly.
“Situation in BAM was very tense,” said Zulkfly.
Meanwhile, the president of BAM Norza Zakaria has confirmed they did meet with Lee Zii Jia on Monday.
Zakaria said the meeting was only to outline Lee Zii Jia’s goals for the 2022 season, including the mission to defend his All England title.
“For now, everything is still in the early stages of discussion,” said Zakaria to Astro Arena.
“Of course, there are things that need to be discussed between the coaching staff, the chairman of the C&T (coaching and training committee), and the players,”
“It’s normal,” added Zakaria.
Well, Lee Zii Jia definitely has the right to quit BAM and become an independent player if he thinks he couldn’t move up to the next level under the current BAM setup. After he left BAM, if he couldn’t find quality sparring partners in Malaysia, Viktor Axelsen would probably be very happy to invite him to train together in Dubai.
Furthermore, if BAM starts banning him from participating in international tournaments, like how they did to Goh Jin Wei, Lee could just join other countries such as Singapore if he meets the “6. INTERNATIONAL REPRESENTATION*” clause described in BWF’s General Competition Regulations. The requirement where a player has to wait for three years before they could represent another country is only limited to tournaments listed in 6.1.1. and 6.1.2. Players only need to wait a few months before they could represent another country at BWF World Tour events because the 6.1. clause mentioned that “playing
as an individual in a Tournament does not count as representation”.
Players such as the 2013 Asian Junior Boy’s singles champion – Soo Teck Zhi who was let go by BAM at the age of 23 in 2018, has not been playing for Malaysia at tournaments listed in 6.1.1. and 6.1.2. Therefore, he could probably be eligible to start playing for another country as soon as he wanted to (we are just using Soo Teck Zhi as an example, and by no means has anything to do with Soo Tech Zhi himself).
In fact, if Singapore could recruit some great Malaysian national and independent players (both men’s singles and men’s doubles) who met the criteria mentioned in the “6. INTERNATIONAL REPRESENTATION*” clause, together with existing Singaporean players such as Loh Kean Yew, Singapore could become a strong contender for the Thomas Cup and also have huge potential to win gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Lee posted an Instagram story on Monday with a message in mandarin saying “How can I see the rainbow without going through the storm.”
Is he hinting at something? Time will tell!
