The entire Indonesian team has been forced to withdraw from the ongoing All England championships.
Reportedly, there were passengers positive for Covid-19 on the same flight which the Indonesian team travelled on. PBSI (Badminton Association of Indonesia) has not been told any specifics about the positive passengers, whether there was just one positive case or many, whether the positive passenger(s) came from Indonesia or from the layover in Turkey.
This has forced the Indonesian team out of the tournament.
There is no official word from BWF at the moment. On the official tournament page, the latest update shows all the Indonesians players marked as giving “Walkover” to their opponents.
It must be noted that 7 people at the tournament earlier tested positive for the virus causing a delay of matches on the first day of the tournament. Upon retesting, all 7 people were found to be negative.
Many Indonesian players including Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo, Marcus Gideon, Mohammad Ahsan, Jonatan Christie and Anthony Ginting have started protesting against their forced withdrawal and said that BWF “must be responsible”.
All members of the Indonesian team, barring a few exceptions, had been inoculated with Covid-19 vaccine before departing for the All England from Indonesia.
UPDATE:
Official statement from PBSI (Badminton Association of Indonesia) :
“Neither the BWF nor the All England organising committee could do anything about it as this has become a British government regulation.
“However it can be confirmed that everyone in the Indonesian team at All England is in good health. This has been an extremely painful and disappointing incident for all of us.”
Official statement from BWF
The Badminton World Federation (BWF) and Badminton England can confirm that a number of players and team members from the Indonesian team have been contacted by the UK Government’s National Health Service (NHS) Test and Trace service and are required to self-isolate with immediate effect. In accordance with UK Government requirements, the entire team will self-isolate for 10 days from the date of their inbound flight after a person travelling onboard tested positive for COVID-19.
All Indonesian players will not be able to compete in the current or next round of the tournament and have therefore been withdrawn from the Yonex All England Open 2021.