Working closely with its membership and the five Continental Confederations, the main focuses of the BWF are to promote, present, regulate and develop the sport globally. BWF’s Strategic Plan 2024 – 2028 and the section About Badminton gives more details on how we do this.

The below briefly describes some of the main day-to-day focuses for the BWF.

Membership 

Servicing

BWF has a global membership of 204 Member Associations. With its headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, BWF provides a range of services to its members. This includes partnerships around event hosting, training courses, educational resources, membership grants to build capacity of our members and develop people in the sport, as well as support for members to attend the annual general meeting of the BWF and engage in the governance processes and the annual Members’ Forum.

Rules System

Having a robust rules system – governance and sports – is a key focus.

The BWF Statutes is the complete set of rules in five chapters – 1) Governance, 2) Ethics, 3) Judicial Processes, 4) Rules of the Game, 5) Technical Regulations.

BWF is responsible for regulating the sport at the international level. This includes sanctioning of international competitions, regularly reviewing the rules of the sport and having a system to ensure rules and regulations are followed in the preparation for and delivery of international competitions.

Events

Working in partnership with members, BWF showcases excellence through delivery of major championship – BWF World Championships, BWF Men’s / Women’s World Team Championships (Thomas & Uber Cup Finals), BWF World Mixed Team Championships (Sudirman Cup Finals), BWF World Tour Finals, World Junior and BWF World Senior Championships.

This involves not only ensuring the event is delivered technically well but also event presentation and broadcast is to the highest levels showcasing inspiring performances to more than 400 million households for the top four championships.

Development

Working closely with the five Continental Confederations and the membership, BWF supports the implementation of a wide range of development programmes globally: Shuttle Time schools badminton, coach education, player development – talent identification and development, membership development – building the capacity of members to better regulate, promote and develop the sport at a national level.

Para badminton

Badminton is a Paralympic sport. BWF has a major role in regulating, promoting and developing Para badminton worldwide. This includes developing the technical capacity of our workforce in Para badminton, player and coach development workshops and training camps, the development of the rules system and the promotion of Para badminton to an increasing fan base.

AirBadminton

AirBadminton is an outdoor version of badminton which was launched in 2019. This is part of a strategy to ensure the game is accessible in environments where there are few indoor facilities. AirBadminton is not only used as a participation activity in the sport, but also a competition discipline. The BWF is developing a competition structure for AirBadminton and hosted the first AirBadminton World Cup in 2025.

Olympic / Paralympic Games

Badminton is an Olympic and Paralympic sport. Our role is to be an active member of the Olympic and Paralympic movements, and with our membership, plan and implement athlete programmes and pathways towards world’s best performances that attract a significant share of Olympic and Paralympic broadcast.

Marketing, Promotions and Digital Footprint

Badminton has an estimated fan base of 744 million and a 384 million active players in the sport. Our role is to build this fan base globally, showcase our talented players and provide information and statistics on the performances and personalities on and off the field of play.

Our global digital footprint is an indication on how we are engaging fans globally.