5 top Danes excluded from national team

On Friday, 5 top shuttlers from Denmark were asked to leave the National Training Centre after a conflict appeared regarding their individual sponsors and the team sponsor,which are direct competitors in the same market.

According to an announcement posted  this afternoon on two pairs’ official Facebook pages, Mathias Boe, Carsten Mogensen (pictured), Joachim Fischer Nielsen, Kamilla Rytter Juhl and Christinna Pedersen, the five players were notified that they could not play for Denmark for the upcoming Sudirman Cup, and that they were aslo asked to leave the national team and that all funding from Badminton Denmark would stop.

“We have told the association that due to this really unlucky circumstance, that we can’t play with Danisa on the shirt, but have to play in a shirt WITHOUT ANY logos. As a compensation, we offered them a lot of options, they could sell us to other sponsors, we could do an exhibition for them for free, we even offered them 50.000 Danish Kr. 7000 USD. They refused all suggestions, but not only didn’t they not call us up for the Sudirman Cup, they also kicked us out of the national team, and have taken all our fundings. Why this ultimate punishment?” it reads on the players’ pages.

Rene Toft, the President of Badminton Denmark, told Denmark’s TV2 it was not acceptable for players to break the collective agreement by entering personal contracts that are contrary to it.  He further said that the players’ failure to rectify the conflict meant that the association had to stop cooperating with them.

This comes at a bad time for Boe, Mogensen, but also Kamilla Rytter-Juhl, Christinna Pedersen and Joachim Fischer-Nielsen (pictured), who were ready to compete in the World Mixed Team Championships, and mostly, about to enter the qualification period for the Rio Olympic Games.  Should this conflict continue and if no solution can be found, it will be a difficult quest for the 5 Danes to get their Olympic qualifications, especially as the national associations are the ones who send the players’ applications for tournaments, and who eventually can chose between eligible pairs who would get to go to the Olympics, regardless of their respective world ranking.

A few weeks ago, Spain had known similar problems, and sponsorship conflicts have hit the Netherlands in the past as well.  The five Danish players have been included on the entry lists for the Australian Open, which is scheduled for after the Sudirman Cup, but time will tell whether the dispute will affect their travel plans or entries in future tournaments.

Click the following links to visit the Facebook pages of Boe/Mogensen and Pedersen/Rytter Juhl