June 9, 2005 Europe to play Asia in new badminton event The European Badminton Union is delighted to announce its involvement in a new badminton event called the MVP Cup. The event will be a team competition between Europe and Asia, and will take place in Manila, from 12 – 14 July 2005. IMG (International Management Group) has created the concept and organised this team event which has enabled the European Badminton Union to cooperate directly with the Asian Badminton Confederation in bringing together some of the best players from the two continents. Nine matches will be played over three days and the mixed team event will feature all five disciplines of badminton. Matches will be played in a similar format to golf’s Ryder Cup. There will be two singles matches and one doubles match played each day. Each match on the first day will be worth 1 point, second day 2 points and third day 3 points. This means that the three matches on the third day will be the deciders for both teams in winning the MVP Cup. The European Badminton Union has assembled a strong team featuring the Athens 2004 Olympic silver medallist’s Mia Audina of the (women’s singles) plus Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms of England (mixed doubles). Five European nations will be represented in total, the other players being Anders Boesen (DEN), Björn Joppien (GER), Pi Hongyan (pictured right - FRA), Yao Jie (NED) and Robert Blair (ENG). The European Badminton Union has appointed Martijn van Dooremalen (NED) to be the Team Captain of Europe. “We are pleased to be working together with the Asian Badminton Confederation in this new and exciting event. Europe has been able to announce a strong team which includes the Olympic silver medallists from Athens ,” revealed Tom Bacher, President of the European Badminton Union. “It will be interesting to see which team will win this first MVP Cup, it is not easy to predict due to the fact that matches will be worth three points on the final day. A team could come from behind to win the event and the larger share of the prize money. Whoever wins, I am sure it will be after three days of closely fought competition.” This will be an annual event and in the inaugural MVP Cup the two teams will have a share of USD 80,000 in total prize money. USD 50,000 will be awarded to the winning team, with USD 30,000 being given to the losing team.                                                                                                                                                            Back