Sawt Falasteen - World body in dark over allegations against China badminton chief

Two-time Olympic gold medallist Zhang Jun, president of the Chinese Badminton Association (CBA), was last week accused of suspected "serious violations of discipline and law".

The phrase is commonly used in China when referring to corruption.

There are no details of the allegations against the 48-year-old, but state media said part of the probe "concerns Zhang's work at the CBA".

China is the preeminent force in world badminton and Zhang, who won Olympic gold in mixed doubles at the Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 Games, is a well-known figure.

He is on the Badminton World Federation's council which oversees the sport and is on several of the governing body's committees and commissions.

"We're aware of that (allegations of wrongdoing) but we're not aware about practically anything else," BWF secretary general Thomas Lund told AFP.

"We've tried obviously to get more information but there's no real deep information available, at least from a validated source."

Lund said that Zhang remains a council member but his other roles, such as chair of the events committee, have been "temporarily reassigned".

He added: "We're just monitoring until we get more information on what will happen."

There has been no "direct contact" with Zhang, he said.

Zhang joined the national team's coaching staff after he retired in 2007, before becoming the CBA's head in 2019.

Rumours had swirled when Zhang was not seen recently, with the hashtag "Badminton Association Chairman Zhang Jun Missing" garnering more than 55 million views on the Twitter-like Weibo.

V.Said--SF-PST