Badminton chief serves Seoul plan

Badminton chief serves Seoul plan

Punch Gunalan, the Malaysian deputy president of the Badminton World Federation, resigned Wednesday, following a vote of no-confidence against him at the federation's annual general meeting in Jakarta.

This means a victory for BWF President Kang Young-joong, 58, who is also the founding CEO of Daekyo, the largest education company of the country, and the end of the year-long wrangling and tension between him and Gunalan whose failed coup d'etat attempt has put not only the reputation of the world governing body but also badminton's status as an Olympic sport in danger.

"He was a passionate guy at the beginning. I'm afraid his staff members failed to serve him right," Kang told The Korea Herald, yesterday. It is, though, no secret that Gunalan, who has been deputy president since 2005, sought to remove the president from BWF after Kang blamed the former deputy president of using the BWF to further his own agenda last summer.

With Kang being able to consolidate his position, his plan to make the organization function better is expected to gain momentum as well. "I will seek to bring efficiency to the operation of the BWF office in Lausanne, Switzerland, to work more closely with IOC," he said.

BWF President Kang Young-joong [Park Hyun-koo/The Korea Herald]

One of two Korean heads of international sports organizations (the other one is Choue Chung-won, president of the World Taekwondo Federation), Kang is also considering the relocation of the BWF headquarters from Kuala Lumpur to Korea, possibly to Incheon.

"What is more important than having a Korean chief of an international sports body is to grow managerial-level staff members to work for it," advised the president. "The Korean headquarters might be able to serve as an incubator to this end."

The president estimates that more than 3.5 million people enjoy the sport of badminton in Korea, which has garnered five gold medals since the sport first became a full competition sport at the Olympic Games in 1992. "It's a shame that there hasn't been a major competition in Korea until now. You haven't seen the best of the sport yet," he continued.

Earlier this month, Forbes magazine's Asian edition ran his photo on its front cover introducing him as a "pioneer in Seoul's big tutoring sector." The magazine estimates his personal fortune at $750 million - No. 26 in the country this year. But he was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

Kang got into tutoring in 1974, to support his family after his father died of cancer. His first students were the children of his uncle's friend, the owner of a construction company for which Kang used to work part-time. The children did well on tests, and Kang picked up more business. In 1976 Kang established what would become Daekyo.

"Competition in the education market is becoming more and more fierce," said Kang. "But we will achieve more than we had planned because we are the best at finding out students' needs and researching what's out there to apply our learning materials."