Malta to host 2022 Badminton Europe Congress

The European Badminton Confederation (BEC) announced last weekend, during its annual delegate’s meeting, that Malta will be the next host of the Badminton Europe Congress in April 2022, which brings together the organization’s members for an annual meeting and its awards ceremonies.

The BEC congress, including the Members’ Forum, Annual Delegates’ meeting and the BEC Awards Gala is proposed to be held in Valletta. The congress comes as positive news for the organisation after the cancellation of this year’s event in Kyiv, Ukraine due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

BEC president Peter Tarcala, who announced the decision, said they had received a number of bids and “the decision was to go to Valletta because it was the best choice”.

BEC General secretary Brian Agerbak expressed his satisfaction after seeing see Malta, a ‘new’ member, organising one of the big Badminton Europe events.

“I am very happy that Malta is stepping forward and have the ambitions to organise a congress, which is a big job for a small federation,” Agerbak said. 

“It is a fantastic destination to go to, and I am sure that all members are happy to go to sunny Malta in April next year.”

This will be the first time that Malta will be hosting the BEC Congress.

Badminton Malta president Owen Grech told the Times of Malta that it is “a big pleasure and satisfaction to host such an important event in Malta”.

“This is the perfect opportunity to showcase our country to our colleagues all over Europe. We look forward to meeting all of them next year,” Grech said

Grech explained that this is a very important stepping stone for the development of badminton in Malta as the event will host all the European associations which can result in bilateral meetings regarding future plans for the sport.

“Our plan is to make use of this opportunity in the best way possible and show that even though Malta is a small country, we are ready for the next step when it comes to Badminton events on an international scale,” Grech said.