Playing to Win in Badminton
Wednesday, August 1, 2012 at 12:15PM There's a recent controversy about players losing intentionally in Olympic badminton. A lot of people involved seem concerned that it's embarrassing for the sport. It its. It's embarrassing that some officals and spokesmen of the sport have so little understanding of Playing to Win that they think the players are at fault.
Playing Fake Matches
I have run many fighting game tournaments, and I have witnessed fake matches. I completely agree that fake matches make a mockery of the tournament. This is so important that one of the MOST IMPORTANT considerations when designing a set of tournament rules is to minimize the chances of fake matches occurring.
Forfeiting a match and playing a fake match are similar (in both cases, one side is losing on purpose), but not exactly the same. Forfeiting should be a natural right of any player in any tournament. A player should be able to forfeit for any reason or no reason, and this must be make explicitly clear in the rules. Further, it should be explicit that if a player (or team) wants to forfeit, then they should NOT play a fake match. Playing a fake match is about the worst possible thing for a competition because of the impact on spectators. If the rules make it clear that simply forfeiting is far preferable to playing a fake match and that forfeiting comes with no penalty, then the rules will have stomped out 90% to 100% of fake matches right from the start. It's just a lot more effort to play a fake match and there'd be no benefit over forfeiting.
That's not the whole solution though, not even close. That's just the failsafe you need in case there is any incentive to lose on purpose in the first place. It should be self-evident that if a tournament system ever gives players an incentive to lose, then it's a problematic tournament sytem.
Losing on Purpose
Let's look at some cases where you'd want to lose on purpose. First a few that don't have to do with the Olympic Badminton case, then the one that does. (If you only care about that, skip to the "Back to Our Story" section below.)
Let's start with two terms from game design: lame-duck and kingmaker. In a game with more than two players (or more than two teams), a "kingmaker" is someone who can, through his or her in-game actions, decide which OTHER player will win the game. The kingmaker is so far behind that he can't win, but he could deal a card (or whatever) to Alice or to Bob, which would determine the winner. This is considered really bad because you'd hope Alice or Bob would win off their own skills, not from some 3rd party's vote. "Lame-duck" (a term I use because I don't know what else to call it in game design) is the portion of a game where a certain player cannot possibly win anymore but somehow they are still stuck playing the game. Lame duck players are ripe to be kingmakers. When you don't have skin in the game anymore, so to speak, your potential to screw things up for others is pretty high. (Note that this is NOT what's going on the badminton case right now.)
Swiss. The kind of Swiss that at some point cuts to single elimination (for a more exciting finish) is full of lame ducks and kingmakers. In this format, you need a certain win/loss record to make that cut, but you can keep playing against more opponents even if you have a win/loss record that is *guaranteed* to NOT make the cut (lame duck). It's entirely possible that you will face someone who still has skin in the game: if they win they will make the cut to the top 8; if they lose, they won't. And you can decide that by forfeiting or not, with no effect on yourself, because you are definitely going to lose the tournament either way. Magic: the Gathering uses this format. You'd expect it would lead to shady situations because of all the lame duck / kingmaker stuff. And it does.
Round Robin. In this format every player (or team) plays every other player (or team). It has the very same problem as Swiss: lame ducks and kingmakers. You can be in lame duck situation yet determine the fate of your opponents. This is just ripe for their being under-the-table payoffs. Round Robin also has problems with the order that matches happen to occur in. If you have to play all your matches right at the start, you don't have the benefit of knowing the results of all the other (future) matches, so you don't know if you can get away with losing on purpose. But if your matches happen to be scheduled for later in the tournament, you do know the results of so many other matches that you can now do shady things. So all players don't even have equal access to the shady tactics, as it depends on the luck of scheduling.
Back to Our Story
And now we come to the actual problem with the Olympic badminton situation. There are "pools" of round robin play where the top 2 finishers from a pool advance to a single elimination bracket. Further, the system of seeding in the single elimination bracket is known ahead of time. This creates the situation where you could playing pool matches but *guaranteed* to make top 2 by your record. If you win, you will qualify and play team X. If you lose, you will also qualify, but you will play team Y. If you think you have an easier chance of beating team Y, you absolutely should lose on purpose. If you don't, you aren't playing to win, and you are kind of a bad competitor. You also happen to be playing in a tournament with absurdly bad rules.
I hope it's clear by now that tournament systems absolutely can have incentives to lose. And if you are holding such a high profile tournament as *the Olympics*, then I hope you'd deeply understand all this and design a system that minimizes or removes all incentives to lose, and adds in the failsafe of encouraged forfeit rather than fake matches if there was some overlooked edge case. It's LAUGHABLE to put even the tiniest amount of blame on the competitors who are playing to win here, when the tournament rules so clearly, so obviously, and so predictably have major problems. That is, you wouldn't need to even hold a tournament to detect this problem. You could just read the rules, see the clear and major flaws in them, then you'd want to direct your blame at the rules writers and correct the system.
It's doubly laughable to actually disqualify the players involved—how about disqualifying the judges? They don't seem capable of making competent decisions about tournament practices. Those who conspired to disqualify players for playing optimally inside a bad rules system are doing the sport a real disservice. Hearing about fake matches in badminton should make our opinion go down, but hearing about the sport's inability to see glaring problems in its own tournament structure should make our opinion go down an extra ten notches.
It's an embarrassing time for Olympic badminton. But not because some players lost on purpose—because someone created horrificly bad tournament rules and then tried to blame the competitors for playing to win.
Reader Comments (203)
"Trying to follow" the bogus spirit of the game rule isn't really possible because it requires that players can predict how the referees are going to make their arbitrary decisions. In this case the referees decided to DQ them. If I was the referee I wouldn't have done anything. Some other referee could decide that trying to win a game that would give a disadvantage in the competition would be anticompetitive and "detrimental to the sport" and disqualified players who tried to win in that situation. Again, this isn't just some random bad rule - it's not even followable.
I agree with most of what you've said, but I don't believe the problem's due to new rules, but rather uncommon circumstances bringing problems with old rules to light. The practice of having round-robin pools to determine seeding for a series of knock-out matches has been around for a long time - the FIFA world cup is an obvious example.
Given that such tournaments have been around so long, with the problems theoretically visible, and having been practically demonstrated before ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Tiger_Cup [although in a football match I suppose the teams could effectively change ends and play roughly the same game - with the exception of the goalkeepers and the rush to defend the other goal after each centre-kick]), the question is why? Is there some equivalent to Arrow's Impossibility Theorem at play where some goals of tournament design are in irreconcilable conflict - eg. a single elimination tournament has no lame ducks and no games with misaligned incentives, but doesn't produce reliable rankings independent of flukes and the luck of the draw, whereas a pure round-robin league produces reliable rankings but has a lot of scope for lame ducks.
I find it hard to believe that the designers of high-profile long-running tournaments would use designs that are objectively inferior to simple alternatives, but since Dave's brought up a couple of alternatives that do seem to improve things on the fake game axis and don't seem to hurt it on the other axes (Double elimination doesn't guarantee that the third best team finishes third, even in the hypothetical situation where the best team never loses, the second best only loses to the best and so on, but neither does the current set up, and I can't imagine any drawbacks to randomised seeding compared to the current system [once Dave explained that it would still have a winner's bracket and a loser's bracket], we may have to accept that is the case.
@zero341 - It does require that the player predict the semi-arbitrary judgement of the refs, but when a ref says "Do it again and I'll DQ you." it's not that hard to predict what will happen if you do it again.
RE: GSL formats
While interesting, the point of a badminton tournament is to measure your ability to hit a shuttlecock over a net into a bounded area occupied by opponents trying to do the same thing. There should be as close to zero reward for being better than your opponents at picking opponents or trying to predict who other people will pick as their opponents. It's just outside the scope of the skills being measured.
@Frank Biggar
I can't tell if you're trying to be funny or just insane, but the last paragraph of your post was one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read on the internet which is the gathering place of ridiculous things.
There is a downside to randomized brackets, which is the increased probability of lame duck winners (i.e. teams whose games mean nothing because the have already maxed out their future chances). In random bracket, if I am already guaranteed a spot in the winners' half of the elimination bracket, whether I'm #1 or just barely in, I have no incentive to try and win future matches (and consequently might forfeit, play a fake match or take a bribe). In a traditional seeded bracket, if I continue to win I will presumably get an easier draw so I have an incentive to try to win and less incentive to do anything screwy.
If there was some clear warning, then I guess the 'rule' could be followed in a way, although giving a warning like that basically amounts to the referees changing the rules midway. So sure, I guess you can follow the new bogusrules generated halfwAy through the match
I'll freely admit I don't know much about tournament design, and I was using the FIFA world cup as a model. http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/matches/matchschedule.html. Maybe they'e unusual - maybe they have safeguards such as the way they seed the groups before the tournament begins that would reduce instances like we saw in the olympic badminton - and if anyone knows, please enlighten me. They're saying ahead of time that the winner of group A plays the loser of group B and so forth, which produces the same problem of lame-duck winners. Looking at the schedule again, I can see FIFA's scheduled the last games of group A and group B together which would reduce the knowledge the teams have of the ultimate state of the group, hence reducing the possibility of gamesmanship.
If you consider, as many do, the goal of the Olympics to be the earning of "honour" or respect for your country, your version of playing to win is, actually, not being helpful. You "win" in this sense by not necessarily claiming gold.
In football, playing to draw may be the same thing as playing to win.
Italy is a prime example, being victims of the "biscotti" ("biscuit" in Italian) in Euro 2004, and narrowly escaping the same fate in the recent Euro 2012.
In Euro 2004, going into the third and final round of pool play, Italy had to win to stand any chance of qualifying. In the other match, all Sweden and Denmark had to do was to draw 2-2, and both teams will be through regardless of an Italian win. Eventually, Italy won. And true enough, Sweden and Denmark drew 2-2, with a late equalising goal. Allegations that the match was fixed was thrown about, but nothing could be proven. Italy was knocked out.
In Euro 2012, almost the same scenario happened. Italy had to win, and a 2-2 draw would have put Spain and Croatia through. A 1-1 draw would have required Italy to thrash Ireland, their hapless opposition, already out of contention. For most of the match, the score was locked 0-0, a result Spain could live with. Croatia looked far more dangerous, Spain looked happy to settle for a draw. In the end, Spain scored a late goal, and Italy who defeated Ireland, went through. Whew. No biscotti. Fair play for the Spanish (Drawing 2-2 would have been more ideal, as they would ensure finishing 1st, and also eliminating Italy, a more formidable opponent than Croatia. Funnily enough, Spain and Italy went on to meet in the finals. If Spain had lost, Spain would have regretted not doing a "biscotti")
So in football, the worst case scenario could be as such - where two teams could both play a "fake game", for the sake of ensuring a safe qualification for both to the next round, at the expense of a third team. It's perfectly legal.
Unfortunately, this is an inherent flaw in any "pool play to single elim" format where teams may win, lose or draw during pool play (double elims would not be possible). The draw for the subsequent single elim knockout phase may have some affect on this, where a team may need to win to guarantee 1st place and a favourable match-up next round (but not in Spain's case as a 2-2 result would ensure them finishing 1st over Croatia).
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Anyway, enough about China. Greater sympathy should be extended to South Korea, which had two teams DQ-ed. Worse still, they only (so they claimed) started throwing the game because China started first, and they wanted to counter China's "match-fixing" by "match-fixing" themselves. Tragic.
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@Bruno - Thanks. My point exactly. Bad rule or not, the rule is there. They thought they were "playing to win" by throwing the match at the start, and perhaps it was smart. But then they were warned. Time and time again. They should have known the risk of being DQ-ed, and playing to win from then on require a change of strategy - stop throwing the game, or at least making it too obvious.
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It's the Olympics, not the Roman Colosseum, for crying out loud. No one's pointing a gun at their heads to play. Athletes have trained long enough with their teams to know the rules, and the demands of being in the team. If you follow the history of badminton (which I do), you will find that China has a chequered history of "match-fixing". There was once the current World No. 1 (spolier: Olympic champion), Lin Dan, appeared to have thrown a game in a final of some minor tournament, so that his compatriot, Chen Long (if I'm not mistaken), could get extra points to qualify for a major tournament, All-England (if I'm not mistaken). In short, he appeared to have lost a final just to help his national compatriot to qualify in another tournament. That's really pushing the boundaries of sportmanship, if you ask me.
In the badminton fraternity, trust me, most countries are silently rejoicing over this DQ decision. Except China, of course.
About this idea that "it's a rule, so to play to win, you have to follow it." If this were almost any other rule, yeah that would be true. This particular rule in this particular case is not like other rules in other cases. To me, it's equivalent to this:
Judges: "Hey players, you need to try harder."
Players: "But that hurts our chances, we don't want to do that. You've put us in an impossible situation here. Our opponents are also trying as unhard as they can, because they have the same incentives we do. If we try even barely harder, it hurts our chances because our opponents won't try barely harder."
Judges: "Ok first warning. We're warning you that we are incompetent and don't know how to run a tournament. We're serious here, we really don't. We are really seriously telling you that you need to expend effort and try your best to hurt your own chances. Put on a good show then "accidentally" lose at a critical moment if you need to."
Players: "wtf? you have to be joking. That makes no sense at all. None of it, not the part where we try hard to hurt ourselves, and not the part where we are putting on some show instead of actually competing. Seriously?"
Judges: "Second warning. We're warning you that our tournament is a joke. That's right, this is super serious. This whole thing is a farce. Participate in the farce!!! If you don't participate in this farce, you have let down the spirit of competition."
It's like some madman or child screaming nonsense at you. A demand to participate in a farce "or else." The spirit of competition was already guaranteed to not be possible, given the situation, before the players even arrived to play the match. If this were some actual real rule, yeah you should follow it. When some incoherent nonsense thing that damns you either way is at hand, I don't see why you'd follow it. If you follow the "rule," then you hurt your chances of winning. If you ignore it and don't get DQ'd (which was certainly one possible result), then that's a winning move. If you ignore and do get DQ'd, the tournament revealed itself as an invalid competition, a joke. If you play your hardest to hurt your own chances, you have acknowledged the farce and become an accomplice to it. If you play to maximize your own chances of winning the tournament, you at least give the tournament organizers the *opportunity* to not embarrass themselves with nonsense DQs.
That's why this is different than like 99% of other rules that could be threatened at you for a DQ. There are mountains of reasons to get DQ'd that are NOT a joke, that are actual violations of meaningful rules. We aren't talking about those kinds of rules here, we're talking about defending the integrity of something where judges are intent on ensuring no system-integrity to begin with.
Sirlin - You started your first reply with "The alternative is absurd" and then I started my next with "Is clearly nonsense"
And you are telling me off for snarky language and antagonism? I'm much more interested in discussion than antagonism, and I'd love it if we could cut out the snarky language. I just think you are wrong about this point.
Aim Here - You start by saying you support Sirlin's position, which was that forfeiting should be allowed without penalty for any reason.
Then you say that If you saw Alex Ferguson forfeit his way through an entire season, it's pretty safe to assume that he's not trying to win and you can set investigators on his ass, and that people who forfeit for certain reasons are rightly punished.
So they shouldn't be punished.
But they should be punished?
....?
I agree with the main point - that the tournament system was stupid, and led to a stupid situation. I strongly disagree that forfeiture for any reason without punishment is a good idea. I think for it to be a good idea you'd have to change sport so it didn't involve audiences (to remove the duty of professionals to do the job people paid to watch them do), and didn't involve gambling (to remove the potential for match fixing if any sporting competition really did allow forfeiture without penalty).
I think we've said over and over why you need to allow forfeits. If you don't, you are inviting fake matches. That there are spectators there doesn't change anything about this. It's not like spectators being there make fake matches a good idea. They make fake matches a WORSE idea actually. If you are choosing fake matches over forfeits, I find that unreasonable. And a tournament that allowed forfeits would work just fine with an audience. You design the tournament in any of a million reasonable ways and people won't forfeit unless there is probably valid reason to do so. 100% of the time that these forfeits that you don't want to happen would happen, you would be replacing them with a fake match--the worst possible mockery of the sport.
One of the best things FIFA has done in recent world cups is play the last set of pool matches within a given pool at the same time. There's naturally less inter-team collusion (China team A in pool A trying to benefit China team B in pool B) in soccer, so it doesn't address that, but it does help lame duck and kingmaker situations quite a bit.
@ApolloAndy
What are you talking about? A country is represented by only one team in the WC. There is no Brazil B.
Yes, only matches in the same pool or group are played simultaneously, in the final round of pool play. Pool A teams will never know when or how to match-fix. But Pool B teams playing few hours later will be able too.
The solution is to play ALL final pool play matches at once, but that would mean substantial loss of TV broadcasting revenue. Not feasible, sorry.
Random 1st place v 2nd place draw? Logistical problem. Teams rougly need to know in advance which cities to go to. Feasible, but hard. (Champions League has a random draw for RO16 after pool play, but games are played home and away, and scheduled over a longer period)
In league-style tournaments, especially in football domestic leagues, I don't see how forfeits can work. Near to the end of the season, there will be Top teams (challenging championship or Top 4-6 positions which will guarantee lucrative European football next season), Middle teams (nothing to fight for), and Bottom teams (hoping not to finish last 3 and get relegated to a lower league next season).
Now, the problem is when any of the Top or Bottom teams play the Middle teams. If forfeits are allowed, these teams will simply forfeit and grant a walkover to the other team, and unfairly affecting results at the Top and Bottom. Worse still, these teams will be open to bribery.
Of course, even now, bribery is widespread. But at least, teams still have to play, and the (un)written rule is that they have to play their best. Play suspiciously bad, and the officers will come and investigate match-fixiing. And more often than not, Middle teams do put up some fight. Allow forfeits, and you open the floodgates for Middle teams not trying and killing the competition anti-climatically, and also unfairly for the Top and Bottom teams who don't play the Middle teams (due to luck of the season scheduling).
Dead rubber matches are an inevitable result of a purely league format. There will be fake matches, yes. But forfeits make things worse.
So, I personally do not hope to see forfeits catch on in mainsteam sports, like football. Although the problem is worse in league format, I think the argument applies for pool play and knockout rounds (heaven forbid, if we allow teams to forfeit on this!) to a lesser extent. It would be sad if due to luck of scheduling and draw, a good team is eliminated due to a biscotti.
Remember Euro 2012? Italy was clearly the second best (if not third best) team of the tournament. If Spain had done a biscotti early on by forfeiting, we would not have the second best team in the quarter finals, what more the finals!
Overall, I think competitions will be better off if teams put effort into winning, and not surrendering games completely. And you know what? Spain DID win the Euro 2012 in the end. They had a "fuck the world, we'll just do our own thing and crush any opposition in our path, just bring it" arrogant attitude, which in many ways, rode them to victory to the last 3 major world tournaments - Euro 2008, World Cup 2010 and Euro 2012. Now, that's where "playing to win every game like your life depends on it " attitude gets you, in the long run.
What happened in the badminton fiasco was that the players put 0-5% effort. Even if they were conserving energy, surely putting 50% will not tire you down. Unlike football, chances of injury is much lower. Sorry, pathetic rule or not, for the sake of the integrity of the sport, the organisers and referees had to step in. Let the farce continue? Well, that might risk badminton being seen as a joke, and removed in Olympics 2016...
Putting in 5% effort in fake match: offensive to the spirit of competition. Reason: fake match.
Putting in 50% effort in a fake match: offensive to these spirit of competition. Reason: fake match.
It's really bad to suggest that putting in 50% is somehow preferable to 5%. They are both atrocious if the match itself is fake. By preferring 50% you are saying "please deceive me." Well I don't want to be deceived. I want real matches. So 50% effort fake matches are no kind of solution to anything. Your football example sounds full of fake matches as well, by the way. If someone *forfeits* a match, they would seem even more vulnerable to some kind of investigation of taking bribes than if they put on a good show of a fake match. And while forfeiting should not be penalized, taking bribes certainly should be. Yeah you need a squishy rule and investigation for that, which sucks, but if you're in squishy rule land, at least be in it for the right crimes: fake matches and bribes.
That's the problem when a sport can big and commercial. You run into all these kind of issues due to the high stakes involved i.e. advertising, organisation, competition rules, players contract, disciplinary actions, etc. It's no longer just about game design and pure competition, that's the problem. You have to factor all these other considerations.
Anyway, I was hoping to move on to a different, but somewhat related issue: sports regulation.
Why we get all these rules, some of which are ridiculous, is because of sporting associations. Want to be a professional, play in competitions endorsed by the global, regional or domestic associations, you gotta to play by the rules. If not, you can stick to kicking around balls in the playground. Choice is yours. Want to make a living out of sports, you have to face all kinds of issues I've just stated, some of them unrelated to sports as a game, but as a commercial phenomenon.
Now, e-sports. Computer and video gaming is trying to make it big as well. Which begs the issue:
1. Do we allow e-sports to be run by recognised associations?
2. If yes, we have to come in terms that these associations will have power, and they sometimes make rules in the interests of not the game itself, but for the intergrity, continuity and professionalism of the sport (I try to avoid "commercialism", to spin it nicely). So are we ready to make this compromise?
A prime example, again, is the Starcraft: Brood War (ok, we can call it "SC1" but technically it's wrong). It became so big in South Korea, that the KESPA (governing body for all e-sports in SK) started taking charge. They became very powerful, and many controversies disputes arose between them with teams and players. They also started making and enforcing rules, like players can't pause games unless exceptional situations. DQ or auto-loss was one of the possible disciplinary sanctions that could be dealt.
Thankfully, no fiasco as big as this arose. But you can see where this leads to:
1. Subjective rules to control fair competition
2. Referee discretion
3. Sanctions i.e. DQ
So, the point is, when a sport or game becomes big, these are the inevitable aspects of any game, whether SC1, tennis or badminton.
You gotta have rules to control in-game things like:
1. Faking injuries / Time-wasting (In tennis, players can be reprimanded for this and complaints have been raised against top players like Nadal. In football, you can get yellow-carded)
2. Dangerous play (e.g. football, rugby, ice hockey)
3. Unsportmanship behaviours (or whatever it's called, it's drafted quite widely. In women tennis, a recent major issue is grunting. Those who grunt loudly say it's natural for them to do so, their complainants say grunts are distracting and unfair. Now, where do we draw the line?)
@RKC
Re: Brazil B
That was exactly my point. The problems with the Olympic badminton tournament were revealed/aggravated by having a China A and a China B team which colluded. The FIFA solution (simultaneous games within pool) could eliminate some problems of in-pool lame duck and kingmaker, and since there's very little cross pool collusion, that's good enough for the WC, but for an olympic tournament where there is cross pool collusion, it wouldn't solve all the problems.
Sirlin, you forgot one of the biggest reasons why those badminton players were kicked out. Racism. The players come from Asian countries such as China, South Korea and Indonesia. If this was a British team that was doing the playing to win strategy, the officials would have looked the other way. Look at the other examples of playing to win/non sportsmanship. A British cyclist purposely crashed in order to force a restart (the British eventually won gold), a French cyclist and an Algerian runner purposely pulled up in their individual events in order to save energy for their more preferred events. Only the Asians and Africans were kicked out.
@RKC
While there are definitely instances where the interests of associations conflict with players' interests (for instance, they might want players to play too many times, or at , or at awkward times for the sake of earning more money broadcasting events. However, it's much harder to see how these conflicts apply to the kind of rules being discussed in this thread; having sensible well-defined rules is pretty much good for everyone. KeSPA's biggest issues had more to do with not allowing its players to play in (most) non-KeSPA tournaments.
@Joe
While I don't know whether racism was at work here, it's impossible for racist referees to disqualify players in the absence of nonsense rules - the huge potential for abuse is just another issue with the 'spirit of the game' rule
@ApolloAndy
No, the same problem arises. Pool B, D, F and H teams will always have the advantage to look at the results of Pool A, C, E and G before them, and match-fix accordingly to avoid supposed stronger teams in the RO16. The fact that they are all different countries, changes nothing.
The only difference is that although football has 22 players on the field, goes on for a minimum 90 minutes, all teams put on a decent performance, whether qualified or not, whether the temptation of losing to get a more favourable draw arises or not. Yes, they may rest a few regular players, but that's understandable to conserve energies. In fact, the good teams often use dead rubber matches to test different strategies, give field time to substitute players, and test your opponent's weakness (for the draw is fixed that you may potentially meet your pool-mate later in the finals, or semies). In short, playing to win actually dictates that you play the game like any other game. No forfeits, no 0%-5% effort.
So far, no team has been DQ-ed for putting in 0%-5% effort. I don't think there's a rule in the WC which states that referee may award a DQ kicking the team out of the tournament for that. And even then, with no such rule, no WC team will put an abject, miserable performance like the badminton players did.
And even if there was a rule, guess what? The footballers, being experienced and cunning "playing to win" exponents, will at least put on a decent performance. Play-acting, if you want to call it, to put them safe beyond being DQ-ed by the rule. Why? BECAUSE THAT'S PLAYING TO WIN. Put on a show, where the referee can't find
a reason to DQ you. Not scoring own goals and what not.
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Now, this is a seperate argument of whether the "spirit of the game" rule is fair or not, valid or not. All I'm just saying is that any player or team in such a position, where throwing the match so obviously can render a DQ, would not throw the match so obviously, if the player or team truly wants to PLAY TO WIN.
Some of you have make it seem such a rule has been badly designed or badly enforced, because "putting effort" is subjective. Sure, it's subjective. But many calls in physical sports are subjective, like dangerous play and time-wasting. But such rules have to be in the rules. Subjective or not, the game cannot survive without such rules. Referee discretion may be suspect at times, but that's part of the game. It's a lesser evil than allowing football players taking out opponent with bad tackles and later claiming "I got the ball first".
Only serious unsportmanslike behaviour really get serious sanction. Like the badminton players. Like NaNiWa, a SC2 player, who got his tournament money revoked and temporarily banned for GSL, because in his last pool match which mattered little except to decide 3rd and 4th placing (but there are different prize money for this), he probe-rushed his opponent. Meaning, he used all his starting workers, which should be mining as what workers do best, to attack his opponent base in an absolutely suicidal move. So the point is, badly designed as such rules as may be, such rules are more often than not only enforced in clear situations when truly justied to save the game's intergrity.
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@Joe
Please don't bring racism into this. 70% of the teams in badminton are Asians. The good ones, save for Denmark, are ALL Asians. The decision was made by badminton officials, of whom I believe, are mostly Asians as well.
If the organisers are truly racist, they would not even let badminton be in the Olympics, since it's dominated by Asians, and hardly played competitively by many Western countries.