Grading and regrading

Your grade decides which competitions you can enter and which team you can play on. This page explains where grades come from, how they change, and what to do if you think yours is wrong.

Badminton Ireland sets the national grading procedure. Cork applies it. The national document is at badmintonireland.com, and where this page and that document disagree, that document wins.

The grades

From strongest to weakest: Premier, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H.

Grades are set per season, but players can occasionally be regraded during the season based on their performance.

How grades change

Two things move a player's grade, and they work differently.

The grading panel. At the end of the season a Cork grading panel reviews players and proposes promotions and demotions for the next season. This is a judgement call, informed by results across the season. Players can appeal what the panel proposes.

Automatic upgrades. Some results promote a player automatically. The panel does not debate these and cannot refuse them.

What triggers an automatic upgrade

National graded tournaments, grades D to H. Win the event and you go up. A D-grade winner becomes a C. In grade H events the runner-up goes up as well as the winner.

Inter-league finals, grades E to H. Inter-league is the club competition. The team that wins its grade in the Cork mixed league goes on to represent Cork against the winners from the other counties, first at Munster level and then, for the provincial winner, in the All-Ireland final. Win one of those finals and you go up a grade, so long as you actually played in the deciding stage. Being named on the panel is not enough.

Inter-county finals. Inter-county is the representative competition, where players selected for Cork play against other counties, again through Munster and then the All-Ireland final. The same rules apply.

Appeals

After the grading meeting there is a window for appeals. If the panel upholds the appeal, the new grade applies next season. If not, you stay on the grade the panel proposed, or your current grade if the panel proposed nothing.

You can appeal in either direction. Asking to be graded lower is as valid as asking to be graded higher, and you do not have to have been proposed for a change to appeal. A player the panel left alone can still appeal.

An inter-league upgrade can be appealed and rescinded before it takes effect. A national graded upgrade cannot be appealed, and a player who goes up that way cannot be considered for a drop back down for a set period. After that period they are looked at fresh, like anyone else.

More information

All grading is subject to change. Badminton Ireland's grading procedure has the full detail.