BUSAN, Oct 14: Judging storms and cries of foul play which plunged the Asian Games into controversy and turmoil could well lead to a radical overhaul of officiating before the next Games in Qatar in 2006.

The boxing ring and the badminton arena witnessed the fiercest complaints ranging from accusations of biased judging to downright incompetence and now the sports’ top brass insist that changes will be introduced.

Traditionally, it’s the boxing bouts which cause the greatest rumpus and Busan was no exception.

Stung by the criticism, Anwar Chowdhry, president of the International Amateur Boxing Association, said that a new plan being considered would require fighters have a 20-point lead before a fight is halted in the third or fourth rounds.

The margin is currently 15 points.

“The boxers don’t seem very happy about the 15 points,” Chowdhry said.

“They still think they have a chance to land a knockout punch. But a fighter is not going to make up 15 points in the final round.

“We want to improve it if there is a problem. Some people do not appreciate it’s being done for the protection of the boxer. They still think there is a way to win the fight. (The margin) will never be enough.”

The only official Asian Games boxing protest lodged came after Uzbekistan light middleweight Sirojiddin Naimov lost to Thailand’s Suriya Prasathinphimai when the 71kg fight was stopped in the third round on the 15-point margin rule.

Naimov angrily protested that he was fit to continue, but the rule allows no options for the referee other than halting the bout.

Chowdhry himself blasted as “disgraceful” the judging that gave South Korean Lee Hyun-Song a 91kg quarter-final triumph over Jordanian heavyweight Yousef Hasan and said he planned to recommend a four-year ban for those responsible.

New scoring methods, spy cameras on judges and safety changes to gloves and mouthpieces have been introduced in an effort to clean-up the sport’s image.

Simmering resentment also boiled over when South Korea won an ill-tempered men’s team badminton gold medal in a stormy final which saw Indonesia stage a two-hour boycott amid angry accusations of biased judging.

The match, officiated by an-all Korean team, saw Indonesia’s Taufik Hidayat storm off court when he was trailing Korea’s Shon Seung-Mo 13-15, 9-12.

Hidayat went on to exact revenge over the Korean in the singles semifinals, but not before he had threatened to repeat his angry walk-off if the match was plagued by ‘home’ calls.

The Asian Badminton Confederation immediately agreed to allow the umpire to overrule line calls, a clause that is not in the rule book.

During the singles quarterfinals, neutral umpires watched every match involving a Korean from the side of the court in a bid to assure fairplay.

The temperature of the Iran taekwondo team also shot up, so much so that they even staged a sit-down protest when their World Cup holder Yossef Karami lost to South Korea’s Olympic champion Kim Kyong-Hun 7-6 in the men’s 84-kg middleweight quarterfinals.

“It’s not a fair play. Why do we have the same referee arrangements when we fight South Koreans,” shouted Iran head coach Gholam Hassan Zolghadri as he went into a side room with officials. “Are all the gold medals for Korea?”

In the gymnastics, a freakish series of ties produced 21 winners from 14 finals. China’s 16-year-old Zhang Nan won a total of four golds — but twice had to share the honours.—AFP