Concerns and controversies at the 2014 Asian Games

A number of concerns and controversies surfaced before and during the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea, which received varying amounts of media coverage both domestically and internationally.

The Games were hit by lack of sponsorship and a lack of interest from the public with only 18% of the tickets for the opening ceremony sold a week before the Games. Organizers were able to generate more interest but there were a few hundred empty seats in the 61,000-capacity stadium at the start of the opening ceremony. There was a shortage of free shuttles provided for journalists and athletes in the days leading up to the Games. Organizers supplied more shuttle buses for the late-night shifts at the request of various international media organizations.

When the identity of the final torch bearer was revealed to be the actress Lee Young-ae, there were mixed reactions in the local press as she had no direct ties to sports. However, she ultimately passed the torch to a pair of young South Korean athletes and the three lighted the cauldron in unison.

The honorary ambassadors of the Games, Korean group JYJ, were reportedly dropped from the opening and closing ceremonies and were relegated to perform in the pre-opening ceremony instead, Other confirmed artists such as Psy, Big Bang, CNBLUE and Exo will continue to perform on stage during the opening and closing ceremonies. After the news broke out, fans asked IAG for fair treatment of the group. Eventually, the JYJ sang the official song of the Games.

In basketball, Olympic Council of Asia's eligibility rule on naturalized players, which contradicted the eligibility rule set by FIBA, became controversial as such rule disqualified Quincy Davis, a US-born player playing for the Chinese Taipei team, and Andray Blatche, a naturalized player of the Philippines, from participating in the tournament. In accordance with the rule, OCA also refused South Korea's request to include Aaron Haynes in the squad, an American veteran player in Korea's basketball league who was in the process of naturalization. Both OCA officials and IAGOC claimed that the OCA's eligibility rule requires a naturalized player to live minimum of three years in the country of his naturalization before becoming eligible to play for that country. Nevertheless, Chinese Taipei Basketball Association stated that it received the positive confirmation from OCA regarding the participation of Quincy Davis, which was suddenly overturned due to the fact that Davis was two months short from residing three full years in Chinese Taipei. Some basketball fans argued that the host nation South Korea brought up the regulation rule at the last minute in order to not allow enough time for its major opponents to reconstruct their squads. Meanwhile, others said that South Korea was just enforcing the OCA's regulation and the South Korean team themselves were also negatively affected by the rule. Despite the request of FIBA to reconsider the enforcement of the eligibility rule, both OCA and the organizing committee upheld their decision.

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