BWF secretary general Thomas Lund says tournaments are likely to be clustered together throughout 2021 ©Getty Images

Badminton World Federation (BWF) secretary general Thomas Lund believes the upcoming cluster of tournaments in Bangkok can serve as a blueprint for staging events amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Three BWF World Tour events are due to be played in the Thai capital this month, culminating in the World Tour Finals.

A calendar for the first half of 2021 has been announced by the BWF, while the flagship Thomas and Uber Cup Finals - postponed in 2020 because of the health crisis - are scheduled for October in Aarhus in Denmark.

"There are a lot of learnings we can use from these tournaments," Lund said.

"Each country, however, is different.

"There will be different minimum standards and different health authorities that will have different requirements to follow.

"We will take away from this all the possible learnings for our next tournament cluster so the set-up can cope with the impact of COVID-19."

The Yonex Thailand Open and Toyota Thailand Open are set to take place from January 12 to 17 and January 19 to 24 respectively.

Following these is the 2020 BWF World Tour Finals - currently scheduled for January 27 to 31.

Chinese players have not travelled to Thailand over coronavirus fears, while the Japanese team withdrew from at least the first two tournaments after world number one Kento Momota tested positive for COVID-19 before a flight from Tokyo.

COVID-19 protocols for the Thailand cluster include frequent sanitisation of courts ©BWF
COVID-19 protocols for the Thailand cluster include frequent sanitisation of courts ©BWF

Lund added that tournaments were likely to be grouped together in a similar fashion moving forward, with a reduction in travel hoped to make it more likely that events can take place.

"We are planning to keep tournaments together in a different way," Lund said.

"There are clusters planned in Indonesia and we hope to make it more accessible for players to be able to travel more easily to such tournaments.

"We have learnt a lot in the last six months on staging competitions.

"We hope to see COVID-19 disappear as vaccines come in."

The BWF's COVID-19 protocols include self-isolation and contact tracing for athletes who test positive, as well as continuous sanitisation of competition areas.

Social distancing and the wearing of masks is mandatory too.

On Wednesday (December 6), it was reported that all 824 personnel in Bangkok, including 216 players, had tested negative for the virus.

COVID-19 protocols in place in Thailand were criticised by Indian Olympic bronze medallist Saina Nehwal, but the BWF insists it has received positive feedback from other players and rejected Nehwal's suggestion that players' fitness was being comprimised.