Minor badminton countries of Europe joins forces to make badminton games to fit their size and capacity.
Faroe Islands, Cyprus, Gibraltar, Greenland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta and Monaco will together form a brand-new tournament in Europe.
The eight latter of the countries were all gathered at the 2018 BEC Congress in Dubrovnik, Croatia, last month, and took the opportunity to organize the first official meeting for their new project; European Small States Badminton Games.
- We decided all together to organize the first event in 2020 in Cyprus. Then, it will be organized in Monaco in the year of 2022, and every two years from there on it will be in a different country, General Secretary for Monaco Badminton Federation Céline Cottalorda told Badminton Europe.
A focus group has been established of Cyprus, Malta and Monaco, which will work towards settling on final dates and concept, but the tournament is expected to last for three days and to be a team event.
Still many details to settle on
The conversation about a tournament for the minor European badminton states started about two years ago, and later spread to involve a larger number of badminton associations.
- Two years ago, Monaco discussed the idea of a small nation’s tournament with Luxembourg, Malta and Cyprus and proposed to organize the event in 2018, Cottalorda said.
Unfortunately, for different reasons, it was not possible to confirm this date. Monaco, Luxembourg, Cyprus and Malta continued the discussion and took it to other small countries in Europe who were all interested as well.
The focus group now has the tasks of discussing the final name, format and any technical details, including to write official statuses and rules.