Kuala Lumpur: As soon as the news of Lee Zii Jia, and former world junior girls’ singles champion, Goh Jin Wei were banned by the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) from international tournaments for two years hit the social media last Friday afternoon, the entire badminton world suddenly declared war on BAM.
The huge outpouring of support from many international players, and badminton fans around the world have pressured the BAM management and Malaysian politicians to quickly put off the flames arised from this controversy.
After a series of negotiations with Malaysian politicians and BAM management last weekend, and after meeting with BAM officials on Tuesday morning, Lee wrote on his social media Tuesday afternoon that he had received the blessing from President of BAM – Norza Zakaria to become a professional player.
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Meanwhile, Zakaria told Bernama that it’s “confirmed” that Lee Zii Jia is allowed to turn pro.
Interestingly, in January of 2011, the mass popular uprising known as the Arab Spring began in the Arab world. While we would probably agree that politics should be kept out of sport, 11 years later, badminton fans around the world came together, used their collective power to ensure that they have a voice in this incident, perhaps, we should call this the “Badminton Revolution”?
Let’s face it, the time has changed, and badminton needs to change as well, from the income and salaries of the players to the popularity of the sport as a whole. The last thing we want is our beloved sport is being slowly replaced by other sports, such as pickleball – a sport being played on a badminton-sized court, the fastest growing sport in the USA, and probably the second most popular racquet sport in USA, after tennis. Pickleball is also enjoying a surge in popularity in Europe as well. Yes, it’s being played on a court that’s the same size as the badminton court.
Here’s a video of two former World No. 1 tennis player – Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick playing a pickleball match.
