Badminton Europe Confederation (BEC) is pleased to announce Peter Tarcala as the BEC President for the upcoming four years.

He was first elected onto the BEC Council in 2003, and since then he had been the Director for Events until 2009. In 2009, he became Director for Sport and maintained this position until 2015, when he became the Chair of the Major Events Commission. He will now make the step up as the President of the European Confederation after his election at the Annual Delegates’ Meeting in Kiev.

The President position became available after the current president of BEC, Gregory Verpoorten (Belgium), had decided not to seek re-election at the end of his term.
Peter Tarcala stood unopposed as the presidential candidate at the election in Kiev.

Tarcala is proud and excited about being elected into his new position and is thankful towards the Members Associations who have put their trust in him, while promising to keep up the good work that has been done so far and work even harder facing the upcoming challenges.

- I am delighted. I am honoured and touched. I am thankful to the delegates that they put their trust in me, Tarcala says.

- I will continue with the projects and activities which are already run by the professional office, but of course we will try day-by-day to create new activities.

First Slovak President
Tarcala, who is the current Chair of the Events Committee at the Badminton World Federation (BWF), will be the first BEC President from Slovakia.

Former BEC Presidents have originated from Switzerland, Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, England, Denmark, and now Belgium with Gregory Verpoorten stepping down.

Joao Matos (Portugal), also took office for a short period of time, as Acting President when Poul-Erik Høyer stepped down in 2013 when he became President of BWF. Gregory Verpoorten was elected BEC President in 2014 and re-elected for a new 4-year term in 2015.

Peter Tarcala, former President of the Slovak Badminton Federation (2004-2006) and current General Secretary of his national federation will, in connection with his new duties, not continue in his role as Chair of the Major Events Committee at Badminton Europe, where a successor will soon be announced. Peter Tarcala will also step down as General Secretary in Slovakia.

Ambitions
Tarcala will continue his duties with BWF, where he is currently elected as a Council member, with the current term ending in May 2021.

His main ambition for his BEC term is to work towards the development of badminton in Europe in different areas:

- I want to develop every possible area within Badminton Europe and in European badminton. I want us to have the best players and coaches that we possibly can. We need good technical officials and we need to increase the numbers of members in our Member Associations, Tarcala says.