The Badminton World Federation (BWF) may introduce an interesting two-tier Super Series tournament for the year 2011-2013 in a bid to popularise the sport.

And this time, they are likely to use a carrot-and-stick approach to raise the status of their premier badminton event.

There will be a lot of incentives for the players. At the same time, punishment will be meted out to players who take the world body for a ride by withdrawing without a good reason or for manipulating the draw.

Yesterday, the BWF deputy president Paisan Rangsikitpho said that exciting times were in store for the players and badminton fans.

He said that the Super Series committee on Saturday had looked into many details to improve the way they present their tournaments.

And the proposals from this meeting will be presented during the BWF council meeting during the Thomas Cup Finals in May at Kuala Lumpur.

“It was a positive meeting. Our findings on the Super Series over the last three years showed that there were some inconsistencies,” said Paisan, who turned up to watch the final action of the Malaysian Open at Bukit Jalil yesterday.

“Withdrawal of top players take the shine from the tournament. And we are looking into ways to make it better. We may not pursue our plan to have a Grand Slam Finals. But we are looking at introducing a two-tier Super series.

“The first tier may consist of three or four badminton Opens. These tournaments will offer lucrative prize money and we will look into a professional way to run the event. The presentation will be creative to attract the fans,” he said.

Currently, the BWF are hosting a 12-leg Super Series, which kicked off in 2007. Every season culminates with the Super Series Masters Finals in December.

“Few countries like Vietnam, Macau, United States, the Philippines and Australia are interested to host the Super Series. We will review the current 12 hosts and decide on the future hosts.

Paisan said that the world badminton body was serious in curbing the withdrawal of players without a valid reason.

“Our findings also showed that there is a trend of top players not participating in the Super Series. We will come out with a guide line and create rules to penalise them if we find that their reason for pulling out is not justified.”