FFT announces the color concerning its policy around the padel : it will be offensive and on all fronts. With the appointment of the Director Padel in the person of Arnaud Di Pasquale and the announcement of a padel at Roland Garros, we can see one thing: le padel will be one of the priorities of the FFT.

In the recent press conference led by its President Gilles Morretton, the President of the International Federation of Padel (FIP) was present.

Several axes and objectives have been given by the Federation in order to develop the padel but also to have benchmarks in time to indicate whether the plan has been carried out or not.

The FFT reasons according to 4 pillars: the number of clubs (or authorized), the number of pitches, practitioners and licensees.

A 4-year plan

She laid down a 4-year plan with quantitative objectives to achieve. Carried by the wave padel and the 2024 Olympic Games, we can reasonably think that we are at the very beginning of an exceptional adventure.

For example, it is planned to increase the number of clubs from 344 in 2020 to 600 in 2024, or to increase the number of pitches, from 777 in 2020 to 1500 in 2024.

Regarding the number of practitioners, the objective is to increase from 110 practitioners to 000. Ditto for the number of licensees (on Ten'Up) that the FFT wishes to quadruple: from 500 today to 000 in 25!

Objective of 600 clubs in 2024

In 2024, the FFT aims to double the number of clubs padel in 4 years and thus go from 365 clubs in March 2021 to 600 clubs in 2024.

An ambition that follows the trajectory and evolution of the number of clubs padel in France for the past two years. Over the past year, things have accelerated. And indeed, it would not be surprising to see this objective achieved in 2023. We will come back to it shortly.

500.000 practitioners in 4 years

How beautiful this figure is! In Sweden, we have already passed the one million mark. So we want to believe that the trajectory of France will be exponential and that we will also reach the million.

However, if we reach half a million, it would already be a great victory for the padel French. On paper, the 500.000 mark will be reached if we keep the same momentum as today.

The new policy padel set up by the FFT and this wave which will become more and more important in Europe could well allow us to reach the million mark, what do you think?

In 2020/2021, out of 110.000 estimated practitioners, 83% are men. If the FFT manages to unlock the counter for women, we could explode the number of practitioners.

Awareness rate of 80%

Le padel would still have a recognition rate of less than 50% in 2021. But we have come a long way! Remember that in 2019, we were at 19%. The health crisis has enabled the padel to be highlighted since it was a sport that could still be practiced outdoors in France and almost everywhere in Europe.

Figures which are therefore not so negative. The FFT aims to see this figure reach 80% in 2024.

8 out of 10 people will know the padel in 2024. If this is the case, it will necessarily democratize this sport as much as possible by making it more visible than today.

world padel tour world land

6 to 7 French players in the world top 100

This ambition seems perfectly achievable to us. However, we believe in view of the history and the qualities of our players, that this figure could be revised by distinguishing the men's ranking from the women's ranking.

Indeed, if we base ourselves on the World Padel Tour, we know that the competition for men is tougher than for women. The difficulty to reach the top 100 is terrible for the men. Almost all the matches are difficult, and this from the preprevias. Plus, without a point, it can even be difficult to be accepted into a WPT table. That is to say the difficulty.

Among the ladies, the competition is more and more important. But we have players who could be in the top 100 in the world quickly. As we can see in international competitions, our French women are always very well positioned.

We could thus see 2 objectives:

  • Top 100 for men
  • Top 50 for women

team france padel 2016

20.000 licensees padel in competition

The ambition 20.000 licensees padel in 2024 could be largely exceeded. Indeed, with the boom in padel and the ambition of the FFT to promote padel, we imagine that this objective will be achieved at least.

Among the total number of licensees, it is the competitors who question us. Will they arrive en masse on competitions padel ? With the implementation of mixed tournaments and events with these “leisure” formats, will there be a beneficial effect on the number of license holders?

blade wilson padel ladies volley forehand

The other objectives

In addition to these quantified objectives, the FFT has announced objectives in terms of marketing and communication. It wishes to support all clubs (private or public), and to be the Federation of all clubs.

The FFT also plans to set up a License Padel, for a better follow-up of the players of padel competitors. The competition is not forgotten, it wants to attract the general public more, but also to shine internationally (become the host of a major tournament).

The training of teachers of padel will not be set aside. The FFT has understood that development will require good player training.

Conclusion

The FFT seems open today to put in place a major plan to develop the padel as a sport in its own right. The objectives put in place are timely and they will help welcome new players to the clubs!

Alexis Dutour

Alexis Dutour is passionate about padel. With his training in communication and marketing, he puts his skills at the service of padel to offer us articles that are always very interesting.