England team leave tournament after 'terrorist threat'

All nine members of the England badminton team have withdrew from a tournament because of a 'terrorist threat'.

India is holding this years YONEX-SUNRISE BWF World Championships that will begin on Monday in Hyderabad.

Badminton England said they are pulling out after taking advice from the British Foreign Office and British High Commission but the Scotland team have said they will not pull out of the games.

England is the only nation to do so.

It was the newspaper, Times of India who reported that the Championships could be targeted by terrorists though police have said there was no specific information of a threat to the tournament by Muslim extremists Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Thomas Lund, BWF COO said “Whilst the BWF respects the decision by England, it’s unfortunate that the English team made their decision before we had had an opportunity to properly brief the team management  before they decided,” 

“We had intelligence information following a meeting with the Cyderabad Police Commissioner late Saturday which would have been important in the assessment of the security of their team,” Lund added.

“Clearly perception plays an important role here, and members of the English team no doubt did not feel safe – but given the fact that the press report was based on false information and this had been confirmed by intelligence agencies and communicated, we obviously feel very sorry and disappointed about the decision”.

Lund added that “It is important to not only have the right security measures in place, but to ensure team members feel secure in their living, training and competition environments”.

BWF press statement