Pleasure and freedom by and in sport: new trends for practitioners. Desires for the practice are changing in societies. The private structures offering indoor football have understood this well; thanks to their offer, the practitioners do not have a regular practice, they can come irregularly, and when they want (provided that there are free fields). However, federations sometimes oppose these private sector movements.

To illustrate these remarks concerning indoor football, and the enthusiasm for this practice, we can rely on an article from Sport Stratégies. This article highlights numbers from Soccer Park. This firm is currently made up of 40 franchisees (25 100% owned and 15 franchisees), and represents an annual turnover of 15 million euros. Their watchword is " growth », For the number of centers and for the diversity of the offer. In fact, more and more franchisees are entering the market, and now also offer the padel in their center. They also develop a large part of events: birthdays, football courses, company events, etc. The centers are easy to adapt, and can offer other activities, especially for one-off events.

Faced with this movement, the Federation has tried to stop, or at least slow down it. She started to develop futsal, but the latter is different from the indoor football offer, which is practiced on synthetic turf and can accommodate two teams between 4 and 6 players.

In addition, the federation is struggling to take the step, it still constrains practitioners too much: medical certificate, training, match on weekends. And these constraints, the private sector understood it well, and circumvented them, faced with this will of the practitioner to self-practice.

Finally, the private sector has taken on a lot of scale and power, slowing the will of the Federation.

Pierre Lemonnier

Pierre studied STAPS, and validated a master's degree in sports management, after studying in Reims, Frankfurt and Lille. I discovered the padel in 2014 during my Erasmus year in Frankfurt thanks to a Spanish friend. Damn it is good padel !

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