Organising a Tournament

Badminton Scotland have an extensive competition calendar. We welcome new competition organisers, if you would like to organise a competition, please contact us for advice and to register you competition. This means competitions across Scotland can be put together in a structured and logical way, avoiding potential clashes which can reduce the number of entries.

Competitions are required to pay levies to Badminton Scotland, so this should be factored into your budget when setting entry fees. Levies are shown below, along with links to download the various tournament levy forms.

All junior tournaments 80p per person per event/discipline – download form
All senior ranking tournaments £1.30p per person per event/discipline – download form
All senior restricted tournaments £1.05p per person per event/discipline – download form

If you would like to register your competition for the 2025/26 season, please download and complete a Tournament form, then return it to our head of events. You should also read the Letter to Tournament Organisers for important information relating to completing the sanction form.

If you would like to discuss possible dates for your tournament, please email us or call 07923 229560.

Please note, from season 2025/26 we have rebranded all ranking events to Gold, Silver and Bronze, replacing the old Grade A, B and C system. We have also added a Copper level of ranking event for senior players.

Prizes

Please note that any tournament which is included in our calendar must divide prizes equally between male and female events. We believe this will ensure that prizes are distributed in a way that is equitable and fair to all competitors.

Badminton Scotland’s age group qualification for the 2025/26 season will continue to be in line with Badminton Europe, namely:

As Scottish Schools Events are tied to the Academic Calendar, their Championships shall be defined as Primary Championships and Secondary Championships (Junior, Intermediate and Senior).

Players must have reached the required age for the categories entered by 31st December 2025.

Once you have received all the entries to your tournament you will need to establish which players should be seeded. Seeds should always be based on ranking lists published 3 weeks before the start of your tournament.

Seeds for junior ranking events: All Gold, Silver and Bronze events need to be seeded. However, from August 2025 tournament organisers for all junior ranking events (Gold, Silver and Bronze) should create their own seeding lists, based entirely on the Scottish Ranking lists. Seeds should be based on ranking lists published 3 weeks before the start of your tournament.

Seeds for senior ranking events: All Gold, Silver and Bronze events need to be seeded. Seeds for Gold senior events will continue to be provided by Robert Blair, who will continue to apply judgement in cases where obvious anomalies have occurred. Email robert@badmintonscotland.org.uk

Tournament organisers for Silver and Bronze events should create their own seeding lists, based entirely on the Scottish ranking lists. Seeds should be based on ranking lists published 3 weeks before the start of your tournament.

Copper events do not need to be seeded. However, if a tournament organiser decides to seed them, the seeds should be based on ranking lists published 3 weeks before the start of your tournament.

Seeds for Masters events: Please continue to contact Dan Travers, Chair of the Masters Selection Committee: danieltravers@hotmail.co.uk / 07801 793038

If a tournament is played in groups, each group must have at least 1 seed. For tournaments played in a knock-out format, the number of seeds for each event should be based on the number of entries, as per the guidelines below:

3-11 entries = 2 seeds
12-23 entries = 4 seeds
24-47 entries = 8 seeds
48-64 entries = 16 seeds

BWF has changed the Laws to make the legal height for a service to be 115cm. This would be measured by the Service Judge with the aid of a Service Height device. Without the assistance of this device it is difficult to determine if a service is legal with any degree of accuracy or consistency. Badminton Scotland has therefore decided, for the clarity of players and in line with practices throughout Europe, that the new Law will only be applicable when there is a service height device in use beside the court. At all other tournaments the previous Law referring to the waist and with the racket head pointing in a downward direction will apply. A tournament must use the same service height law throughout the duration of the event.