Man, what a gigantic cock-up that was.

There they were, a couple of Chinese, two South Koreans and some Indonesians deliberately attempting to lose a match.

What has the sport of Badminton come to?

For so long a sport without corruption, it was now being laid out flat from the tainted actions of a small number of cynical souls.

Talk about making things hard for themselves. Four Women’s doubles pairings hitting a shuttlecock every which way but in, in a shameful attempt to manipulate results to their liking. All of this just to get on the right side of the draw.

So glad they had the confidence in their abilities to take on all-comers.

They couldn’t even muster up enough respect for the Olympic spirit, which it must be said failed miserably to insert itself into the psyche of these women as they defiled the game with their sinister intentions.

Oh well, quaint wee notion anyway.

Luckily, though, officials were alert to the nefarious methods of a few bad eggs, catching them in time before they escaped and impregnated the sport with their mischievous and devilish intentions.

More than likely, this will lead some to say how unfortunate that this has occurred at such a high profile event. Truth to the feather, while we all would prefer nothing untoward happens at any event, let alone the Olympics, that it has under the glare of the big daddy of Badminton Internationals may be a blessing in disguise.

There is now no hiding from the fact that these practices are part of the fabric of this highly skilled sport. And now is the time to stamp it out. To deal with this ticklish poser before it enters the throes of a widespread aneurysm that has become awash with a cancerous shaft of muddy waters that risk exploding through the floodgates of the authorities defences.

Hope remains though. The guilty parties were expelled with a swift ride out the back door with no one to blame but themselves. What’s worse was their lack of smarts in how they went about achieving their goals. In no way should their behaviour be condoned, but one would have thought that they may like to go about their misdeeds in a manner a little less obvious.

So, not only are they now seen as cheats, but also somewhat on the dim side, too.

And the irony of their actions remains that not one of them managed to gain any satisfaction from the end result after being unceremoniously dumped from the Olympic tournament.

To further reinforce the point to these players that their actions will not be tolerated, the International Badminton Federation might like to consider a lengthy ban on top of their disqualification.

Only then could we be sure that there are no more shuttlecocks open to being manipulated for a long time to come.