Seoul: Seo Seung Jae, Korea’s current World No. 9 men’s doubles player (with Choi SolGyu) and World No. 6 mixed doubles pair (with Chae YuJung) received a year-long suspension due to contract conflicts between two different sponsors.
Badminton Korea Association (BKA) announced on Tuesday that Seo Seung Jae has officially been dropped from the Korean national team until the end of 2020. The decision from BKA also signaled possible end of Olympic dreams for his men’s and mixed doubles partners as well unless they are being paired up with the next highest ranked men’s or mixed doubles player in Korea and do extremely well in the remaining Olympic qualification tournaments.
The problem started when Seo signed a contract with the badminton club Samsung Electromechanics at the end of last year, just two days after he had also signed a contract with another South Korean badminton club, Incheon International Airport.
BKA has actually given Seo time until the end of January 2020 to settle his contract disputes with Incheon International Airport and Samsung Electromechanics.
However, Seo wasn’t able to resolve the conflicts after the deadline has expired, and BKA was forced to cut him from the Korean national team.
It was unclear whether the removal of Seo Seung Jae from the South Korean national team would also prohibit him from competition at various international badminton tournaments as independent player.
