PAS has called on badminton players to boycott top tournaments after the sport’s Kuala Lumpur-based world body said it would compel female players to wear skirts.
The new rule was briefly deferred after causing an outcry among players and officials, but the Badminton World Federation (BWF) said last Wednesday that women shuttlers would have to wear skirts or dresses from June 1.
PAS said the rule would discriminate against Muslim women badminton players by preventing them from taking part in top-level competition.
“PAS considers the rule ... discriminatory as it will prevent Muslim players from competing, since exposing their flesh is against their beliefs,” a youth chief in the party, Kamaruzaman Mohamad, said.
“If BWF insists it will proceed with the rule, PAS urges the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) to boycott the Singapore Open,” he added in a statement on Saturday.
“This confrontation (against BWF) should continue so that badminton associations in China, Indonesia, Thailand and others will also boycott.”
The Li Ning Singapore Open from June 14 to 19 will be the first tournament at which female players will be banned from wearing shorts or trousers alone, although they will be allowed to wear them under a skirt.
BWF deputy president Paisan Rangsikitpho denied that women were being exploited but said the sport had to “differentiate the women’s game”, and added that the skirts did not have to be short.
“It has never been the intention of the BWF to portray women as sexual objects, nor is that what we are doing,” he said.
But on Saturday a BWF official said the new rule could be scrapped amid objections from China, Indonesia, India and Scandanavian countries.
“There is a possibility a rule change can take place," S. Selvam, the federation’s Super Series marketing manager said.
Those who object to the rule could urge the BWF council to scrap the decision at the organisation’s annual general meeting on May 28 in China, he said.
