The slow development of Badminton in the Caribbean has attracted the full attention of the Badminton World Federation (BWF) who has pledged more financial assistance to the struggling members of the Caribbean Regional Confederation (CAREBACO).
The CAREBACO countries are Aruba, Curacao, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Jamaica, Cuba, Mexico, Martinique, Puerto Rico, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.
Paisan Rangsikitpho, Deputy President of the BWF and council member Justian Suhandinata made a visit to Barbados where they met with members of the CAREBACO at the Barbados Olympic Association.
Both men are vying for positions on the world governing body and pledged to offer more meaningful support to smaller countries. The countries represented at the meeting were Cuba, United States, Aruba, St. Lucia, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic.
The Deputy President told the members that the BWF is now in a better position financially to help out the smaller countries mainly because the sport is now commercialized.
“We don’t take care of the big strong countries only, we are a global sport and badminton needs to take care of the small ones also. This region is important; the Caribbean region in important. You get good athletic players. That is why we are here, we are here to listen and anything that we can do, just put it on the table and we can make it work for this region,” said Rangsikitpho.
BWF Council Member Suhandinata, who is a candidate for the Presidency of the BWF in its upcoming elections next month, told the members that the world governing body needed to ensure that the sport continued to develop outside of the bigger countries like China, India and Indonesia especially if it is to remain an Olympic sport.
Badminton has only been a part of the Olympic programme for the last two Olympics and the World Governing Body is looking to improve the standard of the sport among the smaller countries like those that make up CAREBACO.
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