The decision has widely condemned, especially as the Welsh and Scottish teams have decided to stay and compete in the event, which started today.

 

 

England decided to pull-out following a media report of a terrorist threat from Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan group who were behind the attack on Mumbai last November.

 

Indian Police have claimed, however, that there was no specific threat against the World Championships or the England team.

 

Badminton England held a press conference at its headquarters in Milton Keynes today to defend their decision to fly back, and claimed the security in Hyderabad was “very lax”.

 

But Randhir Singh, the general secretary of the IOC, who is also the vice-chairman of the 2010 Commonwealth Games organising committee, insisted that adequate measures were taken to ensure the safety of the players at the World Championships.

 

He said: “The England team’s withdrawal is not going to affect the Commonwealth Games in any way.

 

"The security fear was completely their perception and should not be generalised.

 

"The Badminton World Federation (BWF) President [South Korea's Kang Young-Joong] has expressed his satisfaction over the security measures."

 

In April, the Australian Davis Cup team had refused to travel to Chennai to play in the crucial third round Davis Cup tie against India citing security concerns, leading to fears then over the Commonwealth Games as Australia had led calls for the event to be moved out of India.

 

However, the following month, Australian Commonwealth Games Association chief executive Perry Crosswhite visited India and returned satisfied after being assured of a top-class security for the Games that begins in 2010 October.

 

Singh said: “Then Australia might have pulled out of the Davis Cup but now they want to come.

 

"I can assure you that Australia will be here for the Games.

 

"The terror attacks is not an India specific problem.

 

"It has been happening all over the world.”

 

Nathan Robertson, England's best-known badminton player, who won a silver medal with Gail Emms in the mixed doubles at the 2004 Olympics, claimed that the squad became concerned when there were not any armed guards on the team bus.

 

He said: "We were in a bus on some of the back roads, we didn't have any armed guards, any anything.

 

"We were unsafe in that situation and the only decision was to come home.

 

"If anyone, as a player, reads about terrorist groups plotting to attack an event you're participating in, not to be worried or concerned would be unnatural.

"I wasn't comfortable travelling to and from the arena."

 

William Hague, the opposition Conservative Party's Shadow Foreign Secretary and a close friend of Sebastian Coe, the chairman of London 2012, was among those who criticsed the decision to withdraw.

 

He said: "Wherever possible we should err on the side of going ahead with normal life, in the face of terrorist threat."

Although the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office stressed that it had not advised the team to drop out, Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe said he supported the decision.

He said: "You have to support them, because the players' security has to come first."

Sutcliffe promised that he would be speaking to the Indian authorities about the issue and Britain would do all it could to support India ahead of the Commonwealth Games next year.

But Anne Smillie, the chief executive of Badminton Scotland, criticised the decision.

 

She said: "I think perhaps they have over-reacted.

 

"Certainly our Scottish players and our team manager, who are in Hyderabad, feel confident that security is at its best."

Scotland has two players in the tournament and Wales has three.

Badminton England chief executive Adrian Christy, though, insisted the team had received warning of a threat "not just generally to the tournament but to specific top stars."

He said: "Considering the level of concern that we had, security was very poor.

 

"After the players had experienced that, they felt they couldn't put themselves back in the performance mindset.

 

"I would suspect, on the back of our decision, security has been strengthened, but that wasn't there when we needed it."

 

India's opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have seized on the pull-out to claim that the Government is not doing enough to tackle the threat of terrorism.

 

BJP spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy claimed that, following the decision to move cricket's Indian Premier League (IPL) to South Africa earlier in the year, that foreign countries were right to be concerned about competing there.

 

He said: "Earlier, we have seen that IPL matches had to be shifted to South Africa.

 

"There is a perception in the world that India is incapable of fighting terrorism.

 

""This is a direct outcome of how the Indian Government has been unable to handle terrorism."

 

Ian Moss, the performance director of Badminton England, said that the team had made the right decision.

 

He said: Moss said: "There was a security presence but it was not one we had a great level of comfort with.

 

"The security was not set up well at all."

 

Christy has no regrets about the actione he took and said that the team would be prepared to travel to New Delhi for the Commonwealth Games, which are due to open on October 3, 2010.

 

He said: "Of course, we apologise to the federation and the organising committee in India.

 

"The last thing England would want to do is let down our host or our international federation.

 

"The decision doesn't affect how we feel about returning to India for the Commonwealth Games next year.

 

"We were very clear of our expectations of security before the championships.

 

"We in no way over-reacted.

 

"It was the right thing to do."