In enhanced alert zones, sports clubs get organized and denounce some “decisions with serious consequences”Concerning those of close sports clubs including padel clubs.

With the confinement between March and June last, sports clubs have very largely suffered financially. Since their opening, although padel clubs have been doing well again with surprisingly good figures for the summer period, a period generally considered calm, the recent decrees are considered unjustified and endanger not only all sports centres, but also people's health.

This is why through the Syndicate Union Sport & Cycle, "summary actions are filed in all departments”Explains the Marketing and Communication Director from the LE FIVE group, Mars Dessenis.

Below is the press release of September 27, 2020:

Sports recreation players coordinate legal actions to overturn the arbitrary decision to close and initiate discussions with the authorities.

The world of private mainstream sport is mobilizing a few days after the government announcements decreeing unilaterally, without any consultation or prior communication, the closure of sports halls in heightened alert zones. In several large French metropolises, these establishments which had allowed the French to resume a sporting practice framed with strict health protocols, will be forced and forced to totally or partially close their doors, even though, out of nearly 1 million passages in 3 months, no confirmed case of contamination in the centers was reported to them by the ARS.

Most of our centers (300 complexes in France) have already communicated that they will close their doors, but in parallel from tomorrow, legal proceedings will be initiated in the competent administrative courts ”.

These individual summary actions will be coordinated by Union Sport & Cycle, which supports the sport and leisure sector at this critical moment for its future, with the objective of suspending the closure decrees promulgated in the emergency and without consultation and to trigger discussions with the authorities.

This collective movement rebels against the stigmatization that is made of an entire industry, which is heading straight towards an economic and social disaster:

- We denounce the designation by the government of our establishments as "places of propagation", even though a strict protocol (validated by the ministries of Health, Sport and Labor) has been applied since last June. It is not proven that our cinemas are potential clusters, the figures prove the opposite.

- We would like to point out that our indoor facilities have high ceilings and substantial ventilation, and that 10 people on 600m2 are not comparable with a bar or a restaurant .... as such our spaces cannot be considered as "Confined".

- We contest the brutal and uncoordinated method used by the authorities

- We believe that maintaining a sporting activity within a regulated framework, of which we have shown the effective possibility of application, is a public health issue, as the government's latest “desire for sport” campaign proclaims. How to understand that 11-a-side football continues, with 22 players?

- We are sounding the alarm on the plausible collapse of the commercial sports leisure sector if the state does not accompany these arbitrary measures with substantial aid, including: cover for operating losses, extension of partial unemployment, extended exemption charges, aid for the assumption of responsibility or cancellation of rents, etc.

- Finally, we fear the perverse social effects of a sudden end to free sports practices, which greatly contribute to the cohesion of the nation in the difficult context of recent months.

About the group sports leisure sector

It brings together more than 300 complexes in France, for an annual turnover of €120 million. The LE FIVE networks (40 complexes), URBAN SOCCER (30 complexes), the group of independent centers CONVISPORT (20 complexes) as well as the Z5 group are the major players in football 5, a sports leisure activity with 5 million players each year. HOOPS FACTORY is the leading brand for 3*3 basketball, and the AFCP brings together private padel tennis structures, 2 rapidly emerging sports.

Franck Binisti

Franck Binisti discovered padel at the Club des Pyramides in 2009 in the Paris region. Since then, padel has been part of his life. You often see him touring France to cover major French padel events.

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