Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, the host of this year’s European Championships, will be welcoming 10 former and current players who are looking to build towards the next step in their badminton careers.

Behind every player stands at least one coach. The players on the BWF World Tour and the BEC Circuit know how important it is to have the support sitting behind the court and they also know the importance of the person feeding shuttles and guiding them every day in practice.

Badminton Europe and BWF have invited players who have played – or are still playing – at BEC International Challenge level or higher to attend the combined BWF/BEC Level 1 and Level 2 Coach Education Course.

The aim of the courses is to prepare the players to a future as coaches on all levels, and Senior Manager at Badminton Europe and former German National Coach, Jacob Oehlenschlaeger highlights the importance of educating players to become coaches.

- The players on this level know what it takes.

- Players, who have been playing on the highest level, have know-how about the sport, which is hard to learn from reading books.

- Getting a coach education is important for the players if they want to become really good coaches. All the knowledge they have must be turned into valuable tools for the future generations of players, which a coach education will help them with. If you look around Europe you also see many former top players now being coaches on all kind of levels and I can only encourage them join this course, Oehlenschlaeger said.

This course is already set and will be held from 8th-16th November. 

Upcoming courses are due to be announced soon, so if you are interested in attending a course, it is easy to take the next step:

All applications must be submitted by your National Federations, so reach out to your federation, if you are interested in attending.

Mari Carmen Casermeiro, Development and High Performance Officer, Badminton Europe