The International Badminton Federation looks set to implement a new scoring system for badminton.  Although a rule change would have to be approved by the membership at an Annual General Meeting, the IBF Council is expected to declare that a new scoring system is experimented at specific events from as early as December 2005.

The IBF Council will meet next month in Kuala Lumpur from 7 - 10 December 2005.  It is anticipated that a decision will be made during these meetings to experiment with a new scoring system at a number of events before the 2006 Annual General Meeting being held in Japan next May. 

IBF has already instructed EBU that a new scoring must be used at the European Men's and Women's Team Championships taking place in Thessalonica , Greece from 14 - 19 February 2006.  This event is also the European preliminary qualification event for the Thomas and Uber Cup Finals.  EBU is keen to ensure that all European teams participating in this event are aware that they will have to use a new scoring system.

The layout of the court is also expected to be changed, with the removal of the first (inner) backline, thereby changing the service situation in doubles events.

The removal of the inner backline is intended to make the court less confusing to television viewers and new players of the sport, however it is a difficult task to implement this change at all levels and could take many years (and be very expensive) before the change is seen at a grass-roots level.

The scoring system that is likely to be approved by the IBF Council will change the sport dramatically.  All five disciplines will play the best of 3 games, each played to 21 points.  Rally point scoring will also be adopted, meaning that a point can be won by either player(s), within any rally, not dependant on who has served. 

This will of course affect many areas of badminton.  The European Badminton Union is currently evaluating the changes this will bring to areas such as court officials and the education of the sport.  Software solutions will have to be changed so that new scoring methods can be integrated into what currently exists, and all scoring devices used by umpires and live scoring personnel will have to be upgraded.

These changes are being proposed as an initiative to make badminton more appealing for television.  The use of rally point scoring is expected to speed up the length of games, as points will be won on every rally.  It is thought that this will then make it easier to predict the entire length of a match, suiting the demands of television audiences.

The problem and danger of playing to 21 points is that it takes longer to reach the exciting "pressure" points within a game.  With the current scoring system being played to 15, badminton has been criticised for not being exciting until the scores reach double figures.  Playing to 21 simply extends this period of time in which badminton fans are waiting for the game to "warm-up" and for the tension to build.