Singapore – Badminton can do more to become a global sport by allowing tournaments to be played outside the sport’s traditional Asian bastions, two-time Olympic champion Lin Dan said Tuesday.

Speaking at a news conference ahead of this week’s Singapore Open, the Chinese superstar said the sport should be more popular than it already is.

“Badminton is an attractive sport that helps a lot of people, especially teenagers, both physically and mentally,” he said through a translator.

“If you want more (people) to accept and enjoy the sport, competitions have to be played in different parts of the world rather than always in India, Singapore, Malaysia or China,” he added.

“Should competitions of a high standard be organised in new venues, I am very willing to take part.” The 32-year-old added it was the job of the Badminton World Federation to promote the sport to a wider international audience.

Nicknamed “Super Dan” in 2004, by now-retired Danish star Peter Gade, the Chinese shuttler remains the only singles player to have scooped all nine major badminton titles on top of two Olympic golds.

While the pressure may be on Lin to add a third gold at the Rio Olympics in August, he said his focus would simply be to perform at his best.

“We won’t be thinking about statistics or the chances of winning gold. It’s only by playing one’s best in every game that you will have the best outcome,” he said.

World number one Chen Long – who is also from China – is another hot favourite for Olympic gold this summer.

But one contender who will not be at Rio is the Japanese player and world number two Kento Momota, who was expelled from the national Olympics team for gambling at an illegal casino.

The 21-year-old has been banned from competition indefinitely by the Nippon Badminton Association.

But Chen said there were other countries, such as Denmark and Germany, that had good players.

“You can’t say that just because there are one or two competitors less that it becomes easy,” he said at the same news conference.

Lin, ranked number three in the world, said he admired the Nippon Badminton Association for taking strong action.

“This is a matter for the Japanese association and their country, it is not for us to comment on the matter,” he said.

“But, from what I have read, I respect and admire the Nippon Badminton Association for their stand… that regardless of who has committed an offence, their stance remains the same.”

The sight of elite footballers getting off team buses with headphones on does not impress Southampton manager Ronald Koeman, who insists the near-obsession with smartphones and social media leads to a communication breakdown on the pitch.

The Dutchman, whose team are seventh in the Premier League, revealed how he was sending his players to weekly communication sessions to get them talking to each other again.

“The whole lifestyle has changed,” Koeman told the Return To Play football medical conference in London.

“One of the problems you see now in football is there is not enough communication on the pitch. That’s all about social media. Everybody goes on it straight away on their phones.”

The 53-year-old former Dutch international and member of Johan Cruyff’s “Dream Team” at Barcelona, spoke of how things were different before the advent of smartphones, when team mates on long coach journeys interacted more with each other.

“When I was playing, we played cards on the coach when we went to matches, we talked and we had communication,” he added.

“Now everyone just puts on his headphones and is in his own world. For young players it is all about themselves and less about communication with the rest of the players.

“That is maybe one of the reasons they don’t talk any more on the pitch. Communication on the pitch is so important even if it is just to help your team mates and say ‘time’ or ‘turn’!

“That’s so difficult now. To deal with this we do sessions in training, different exercises every week which are all about focus, communication and concentration.”