Doha: Qatar Badminton Association’s (QBA) top most priority is to have a badminton club house of its own to tide over the difficulty in getting venues to s tage major tournaments, said President Hisham Al Gosaibi.
Speaking on the side lines of the Shuttle Time Qatar, a grassroots badminton programme, conducted by Badminton World Federation (BWF), Badminton Asia Confederation (BAC) and QBA at Qatar Volleyball Association Hall at Al Arabi Stadium, Al Gosaibi said: “We are having a tough time to get venues to stage badminton tournaments in Doha. We have informed the Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) about our difficulties and the need to have an badminton club house. We are confident that the QOC’s decision to allot a club house exclusively for badminton will come soon.”
“It (badminton club house) will serve our badminton community. The number of players playing and undergoing coaching is increasing. Besides badminton is an Olympic sport,” he added.
The QBA official disclosed that the nine-day programme, Shuttle Time Qatar, will go a long way in nurturing new talent in the country.
“The motto of the programme is ‘because we want every child to have a chance to play badminton’. We have tied up with QOC and Qatar School Sports Association (QSSA) for the September 26 to October 4 programme,” informed Al Gosaibi.
Shuttle Time is a grassroot programme of BWF and BAC.
Under the programme BWF and BAC want to popularise badminton at the grassroot level with support from school and educational institutes through out Asia.
Over twenty schools from Qatar represented by 24 teachers are attending the programme.
Muhammad Andy Ardiansyah from Indonesia, a development officer with BAC is conducting the programme.
“Shuttle Time acts as the self-study boot camp for teachers and coaches helping them hone their skills and expertise in making badminton a fun and safe sport to play for children and youth,” informed Ardiansyah, who has been a instructor with BAC from 2011.
Ardiansyah said simliar programmes were held in Bahrain and Lebanon. Under the programme each school in Qatar has been provided with racquets, badminton nets and shuttles to make the sport popular in Qatar.
The Peninsula
