The players to join the Player Development Plan “Future Stars” for the 2014-2015 season have been selected. With this programme, which supports a total of 25 players, Badminton Europe (BEC) support the most promising young talented players in Europe. The idea is to help the players to get from junior to senior level. The players in this group will get individual support. This support will consist of tournaments, training and coaching support.

The focus of the project is to help and guide the young players with their first three years in the senior Circuit. For many European players these three years are the most difficult ones of their senior career. Badminton Europe want to give them support so that they are able to play more tournaments and get experience from different coaches.

The players, who take part in this programme have to hand in their tournament plans so that we can see where we best can support them. We would also like to organize trainings camps or send coaches with the players to the tournaments.

“We have been very happy with last year’s Future Stars programme. Most of the players moved up in the BWF world ranking which is the main goal of the project”, says Jeroen van Dijk, BEC Development Manager.

Badminton Europe made a selection of players after the 2013 European Junior Championships for the 2013-2014 season. This Group of players consisted out of the best eight players in women's  and men's singles from the European Junior Championships in 2013 and out of 8 players who got a wildcard (four in the women's singles and four in the men's singles). For the 2014-2015 season, the selection for the newly selected players was based on the 2014 European U17 Championships and on their positions on the world rankings per 3 July 2014 for the players who were selected for last year’s Future Stars. For the new season 2014-2015, the decision was made to allow a maximum of one male and one female player per Member Association.

The support for the players who fulfill the criteria will be for one year with an option to renew every year for a maximum of three years in total. The support is € 1.200 per player per year.

The players in the "Future Stars" programme:

Adam Mendrek (Czech Republic)
Fabian Roth (Germany)
Yvonne Li (Germany)
Ira Banerjee (England)
Mark Caljouw (The Netherlands)
Line Kjærsfeldt (Denmark)
Clara Azurmendi (Spain)
Maja Pavlinic (Croatia)
Daniella Gonda (Hungary)
Josh Neil (Scotland)
Kristin Kuuba (Estonia)
Anders Antonsen (Denmark)
Martina Repiska (Slovakia)
Delphine Lansac (France)
Toma Junior Popov (France)
Matthias Almer (Austria)
Marie Demy (Belgium)
Milica Simic (Serbia)
Rhys Walker (England)
Stefani Stoeva (Bulgaria)
Kalle Koljonen (Finland)
Matej Hlinican (Slovakia)
Lucie Cerna (Czech Republic)
Julie Macpherson (Scotland)
Joshua Magee (Ireland)

Photo collage: BadmintonPhoto.