Japan’s men’s kabaddi team defeated South Korea 62-35 in the group stage of the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on September 24.
Despite the 27-point rout, Japan did not advance to the semifinals.
What separated the teams tied on points was not the score difference across all matches, but the International Kabaddi Federation (IKF) regulations.
3-Line Summary
1. Japan’s 27-point margin against South Korea was excluded from the standings
2. South Korea had 0 points, falling short of the 25% threshold
3. Even a big victory must first be assessed under the standings regulations
Why Was 62-35 Against South Korea Excluded from the Calculation?
Japan defeated South Korea 62-35 in the final match of Group A, finishing the group stage with 2 wins and 2 losses and 4 points. Taiwan then lost to India, leaving Japan, Taiwan, and Bangladesh all with 2 wins and 2 losses and 4 points. Japan was in a position to expect 2nd place in the group based on its large score margin against South Korea.
However, the so-called 25% rule under the IKF regulations was applied. The rule states that if a team’s points in the group stage do not reach 25% of the maximum points available in that group, the points scored and conceded in matches against that team are not reflected in the standings calculation.
Group A consisted of 5 teams playing four matches each, making the maximum possible points 8, and 25% of that is 2 points. South Korea had 0 points after losing all 4 matches. Accordingly, the points scored and conceded in the match against South Korea were excluded from the calculation of the rankings among teams tied on points, and Japan’s +27 also lost its effect.
Taiwan -13, Bangladesh -25, Japan -26
After excluding the result against South Korea, the recalculated score differences were Taiwan -13, Bangladesh -25, and Japan -26. Japan finished 4th in Group A, 1 point behind Bangladesh, while Taiwan advanced to the semifinals in 2nd place in the group.
In this tournament, the top 1st and 2nd teams from each group advance to the semifinals, and there is no 3rd-place match. Therefore, the teams advancing to the semifinals secure at least a bronze medal. Japan’s medal challenge ended in the group stage.
This rule functioned as a mechanism to prevent the result of defeating a particular team by a large margin from having an excessive effect on tied standings. In this case, the match result did not disappear; it was excluded only from the score-difference calculation used to separate teams tied on points.
Japan Federation Apologizes for “Insufficient Understanding of the Regulations”
The Japan Kabaddi Association apologized for causing confusion because of insufficient understanding of the regulations and inadequate internal information sharing within the association. The association also announced plans to reconfirm the regulations and review information sharing within the officiating department and education for players.
According to reports, the IKF delivered the regulations applicable to the Asian Games to the Japan Kabaddi Association last June. However, the Japan Kabaddi Association understood the explanation stating “score difference in the event of a tie in points” in the tournament documents to refer to the score difference across all matches and failed to accurately reflect the possible application of the 25% rule.
The most important number in this incident was not 62 points or a 27-point margin, but 2 points. South Korea’s 0 points, falling short of 2 points—25% of Group A’s maximum 8 points—became the 기준 for excluding Japan’s big victory from the standings calculation.
References
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