The Badminton World Federation (BWF) is the international governing body for the sport of badminton recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). It was founded in 1934 as the International Badminton Federation (IBF) with nine member nations (Canada, Denmark, England, France, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland and Wales). In 1981 the IBF merged with the World Badminton Federation, and on 24 September 2006, at the Extraordinary General Meeting in Madrid, the name of the organization was changed to Badminton World Federation (BWF). When the BWF was founded (as the IBF), its head office was located in Cheltenham, UK. The head office was relocated to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on October 1, 2005. Poul-Erik Høyer Larsen is the current president. The BWF currently has 176 member nations around the world, organized into 5 continental confederations. Continental federations The BWF works in co-operation with regional governing bodies to promote and develop the sport of badminton around the world, they are: Presidents Below is the list of presidents since 1934: Rankings The BWF World Ranking and BWF World Junior Ranking are introduced to determine the strength of the players. BWF World Ranking is used for determining the qualification for entry and seeding for the BWF-sanctioned tournament. The points awarded is based on the final results of each tournament participated for the past 52 weeks. Junior Ranking consists of players under 19 years old. Tournaments Grade 1 The BWF regularly organises seven major international badminton events and two events for para-badminton: Major tournaments: World Championships Thomas Cup Uber Cup Sudirman Cup Olympic Games in co-operation with International Olympic Committee Other major tournaments: World Junior Championships BWF World Senior Championships Para major tournaments: Para-Badminton World Championships Paralympic Games in co-operation with International Paralympic Committee (sports added since Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games) Event(s) are no longer held regularly: World Cup was suspended since 1997. However, the BWF revived the event in 2005 (with China as host) but only as an invitational tournament. China swept gold in all 5 categories. Grade 2 Grade 2 tournaments, known as BWF World Tour was sanctioned into six levels with different world ranking points awarded, as order they are: Level 1: BWF World Tour Finals Level 2: BWF World Tour Super 1000 Level 3: BWF World Tour Super 750 Level 4: BWF World Tour Super 500 Level 5: BWF World Tour Super 300 Level 6: BWF Tour Super 100 The events that