Kuala Lumpur: Badminton World Federation (BWF) has ruled out awarding the 2015 World Championships wild card to Lee Chong Wei.
In an article titled “‘Development’ Players in Phase 1 List” published by BWF on Wednesday, last two sentences of the article indicated BWF would not offer wildcard for the 2015 World Championships.
“There will be no wild cards for the event, with BWF deciding not to use its quota in any of the five categories.”
“Indonesia too will not issue any wild cards since the hosts have players in all five categories.”
The secretary of Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) also confirmed on Thursday that BWF have rejected their request to grant Lee Chong Wei a wild card for the World Championships in Jakarta that will be held from Aug 10-16.
With that decision made by BWF, the ball is now in BAM’s court. BAM have until May 14 to determine who they would want to sacrifice to free up a place for Lee Chong Wei at the world meet. Currently, two Malaysian shuttlers have qualified for the world meet on merit, they are – world No. 31 Chong Wei Feng and world No. 41 Zulfadli Zulkiffli.
Another option for BAM would be not to send Lee Chong Wei to the world championships at all, which is very unlikely to happen. Because Lee has a higher chance of winning a medal at the world meet, and this could be the last world championships of his career.
