On day two of the 2023 BEC Congress held in Baku, Azerbaijan, the delegates of 43 European countries elected Sven Serré from Belgium as the new president of Badminton Europe.
Serré received 32 out of 43 votes and will be the new BEC President for the period 2023 – 2027. He takes over the position from João Matos, who has served as acting president since Peter Tarcala resigned from the position due to personal reasons in August 2022.
Badminton Europe General Secretary Brian Agerbak congratulated Sven Serré on his victory: “Sven has a lot of experience in various areas of badminton. He is quite visionary and presented some interesting plans for the future and ideas on how we can improve”, stated Agerbak and added: “I think he is going to come in and bring structure to a lot of the things we are doing. He will add some new ideas, which is always beneficial.”
Two new Directors join the Board
Out of five people running for two open positions on the BEC Board of Directors, Viktoria Tsvetanova from Bulgaria and Peter Emptage from England were elected by the delegates today.
“I am of course hugely happy but most of all feel very honored and privileged to have received so much trust from the Member Associations. Now I am looking forward to delivering on that most of all”, said Tsvetanova who received 38 out of 43 votes in the first round.
It was a close race between the remaining candidates, Peter Emptage (England), Nir Sadeh (Israel), and Klavs Andreassen (Denmark). After three rounds of voting, Peter Emptage was elected to join the Board of Directors for the upcoming 4-year period.
Richard Vaughan becomes European BWF Vice President
In the last election of the day, Richard Vaughan from Wales received 31 out of 43 votes to become the new European BWF Vice President. Vaughan, who has been a BEC Board Member since 2015, was happy with the result and looks forward to representing Europe's interests in the world of badminton.