LONDON — Badminton officials took the extraordinary step of tossing out four pairs of women — two from South Korea and one each from China and Indonesia — for deliberately trying to lose their preliminary matches Tuesday night, the latest judging controversy to sweep through the Olympics.


The decision came less than a day after the final matches in the preliminary rounds of the women’s doubles, where the players — all of whom had qualified for the quarterfinals — tried to throw their matches so they could face an easier opponent in the next round.


The shocking disqualifications threw the tournament into turmoil and prompted protests and calls for rule changes. Korea and Indonesia have appealed the decision, and officials hoped to rule on the appeal soon. All four sets of players were supposed to play Wednesday.


Thomas Lund, the secretary general of the Badminton World Federation, the sport’s governing body, said that the four sets of women violated the Players’ Code of Conduct, Sections 4.5 and 4.6, for “not using one’s best efforts to win a match” and “conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport.”


The federation determined at a disciplinary hearing that the players in two separate matches tried to serve into the net and hit shots out of bounds. Their play led to hoots and catcalls from the packed house at Wembley Arena, with some fans yelling, “Off, off, off.” In one match, a Danish umpire warned the players that they could be thrown out by flashing a black card, a rare action in the sport.


The disqualified players are Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang from China, the top-ranked women’s doubles pair, who lost Tuesday to the South Korean team of Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-na, who were also disqualified. The players were presumed to be trying to lose because neither wanted to face the second-ranked women’s pair of Tian Qing and Zhao Yunlei in the quarterfinals.


Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung of South Korea and Meilana Jauhari and Greysia Polli of Indonesia were also thrown out for lackluster play in a later match Tuesday.


Even before the disqualifications, the matches Tuesday triggered hand-wringing throughout the sport. This is the first Olympics to include preliminary rounds in which four teams play one another once to determine who will advance to the knockout stage. The extra preliminary round was designed to give all teams — including those from weaker countries that might have been knocked out after one match under the old rules — a chance to play at least three times.


All four pairs who played Tuesday had secured spots in the quarterfinals, so jockeying for an opponent — not winning or losing — was the imperative.


Because the Chinese so dominate the sport and are so numerous in the tournament, they have an incentive not to play one another when possible. And because they are so good, teams from other countries do their best to avoid the Chinese until they have no choice.


Throwing matches has been a persistent problem, and some players and officials have accused the Chinese of being the worst offenders.


Niels Nygaard, the president of the national Olympic committee in Denmark, which has the strongest badminton players in Europe, applauded the federation’s decision and pointed the finger not at the athletes, but their coaches.


“For me, it’s really a matter of principle whether things are done in a correct way,” Nygaard said after the announcement, which was made in a packed conference room at the arena. “I don’t think it’s the rule that’s the problem. It might be the leaders behind trying to tell the athletes to do something like this. It’s the same in doping cases.”


Former British players, commentators and fans also called the play unsportsmanlike and an affront to those who paid dearly to see top-ranked players compete. Some of them accepted that players were stretching the limits of the rules, but could not understand why an Olympian would not try her best at all times.


“It’s perfectly legal but morally indefensible,” said John MacGloughlin, a Briton who has played club-level badminton for 30 years and paid almost $50 to attend Wednesday’s afternoon session. “At that level, you don’t do that.”


While the Chinese team did not appeal the decision, at least one Chinese player stood by his teammates and blamed the federation for not anticipating that this strategy might be used when group play was introduced.


“They should have thought ahead and seen that this kind of situation might happen and thought what they could have done to avoid this situation and stop it happening again in the future,” Lin Dan, the world’s best men’s singles player, who is from China, said after winning a match Wednesday. “Think in the U.K., would your football team want to meet Spain in the first round? Athletes think for themselves and would have their best interests at heart.”


Badminton is not the only sport in which strong teams throttle back in the preliminary round. On Tuesday the world champion Japanese women’s soccer team played to a scoreless tie against a much weaker South African side.


The tie, as opposed to a win, meant that the Japanese, who had already qualified for the knockout round, avoided having to travel to Glasgow to play the United States or France in the quarterfinals. Instead, they will remain in Cardiff and play Britain or Brazil.


Afterward, Norio Sasaki, the Japanese coach, said that he put in substitutes and told them to keep possession of the ball. The players, he said, “were on the same page as me.