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India's 2022 Commonwealth Games Gold medal-winning badminton doubles player Chirag Shetty recently made a shocking revelation that he has received threatening messages online from unknown numbers, telling him to die or else he will be killed. Shetty has been receiving such messages for a long time, and he suspects that it could be because these threats might be coming from gamblers of the sport.
Shetty has not officially filed a complaint but has claimed that many badminton players are facing similar threats. According to him, the language used and the numbers suggest that the messages are coming from Indonesia.
"Someone criticising a player is okay (you don’t feel great) but it’s okay to voice your opinion on someone playing good or bad. But to give someone threats similar to what Kirsty faced is just not done. Have received similar things in the past where they say all kinds of rubbish, ‘go die, I’ll kill you’, etc which obviously is because they might have put money on you and have lost,” Shetty said.
"They write in Bahasa. It’s from anonymous accounts. And mostly Indonesian,” he added.
The news comes after another shuttler — Scotland's Kirsty Gilmour — opened up to the BBC about scary threats involving rape and even killing her. She suspects that it could be the same people who spend money on the matches. "It's always from an anonymous account, no picture, no followers. My best guess is they are betting on matches and lost and they decided to take it out on me,” Gilmour was quoted by the BBC.
Another Indian badminton player, Sikki Reddy, also said that fans criticise the shuttles on social media after every defeat, which is tolerable. But some people send dirty messages that include their families, and if they reply, the sender uses even more foul language.
Reddy thinks that it's difficult for the Badminton World Federation (BWF) to do anything about it because it's hard to trace these accounts. She has since blocked many numbers and accounts.
"You win or lose abuses are common on social media. Not just me every player goes through it and sometimes it’s very bad. The words they use are horrible. I can’t even say those words it’s that bad. And the worst part is they bring family also into it. What have they done (over here) I don’t understand,” she said.
Meanwhile, the BWF Secretary Thomas Lund, strongly condemned such misbehaviour with the players and said that the federation is with the players and will take every step to investigate the matter. The federation will work with the help of the police to ensure that players do not face such threats in the future.
"BWF condemns all forms of bullying and is deeply concerned by the nature of threats made towards Scotland’s Kirsty Gilmour last week. BWF strongly supports Kirsty Gilmour’s stance taken against these online trolls and offers its support to all players who may be on the receiving end of such abuse," the statement from BWF secretary Thomas Lund said.
"We also support the involvement of the police in such matters as they have the tools necessary beyond those of the BWF to investigate these online abuse incidents thoroughly and to ultimately identify the perpetrators," he added.
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