By repeating it, some come to doubt it. But the padel evolves in France. And it's there FFT which provides us with all the figures allowing us to realize this.

The network and places of practice

It is easy to say that the number of clubs and pitches is increasing in France, that no matter where we are in France, we can find pitches of padel, but what is it really in the facts?

If we observe the evolution of the number of clubs, it is clear that we are on the ascending phase. In 2019, there were 288; in 2020, 344 and in 2021? 411. Among these 411 clubs, 96 of them are clubs ONLY padel.

Regarding the number of courts, this is surely where the evolution is the most striking. Yes in 2019. the number of sites was counted to 639, in 2021 there are now 955. We also notice that 57% of the land is outdoor which gives us 43% are indoor courts.

A question crosses our mind, in which regions have these increases been felt the most?

  • Occitanie: + 12 clubs
  • New Aquitaine: + 10 clubs
  • Auvergne Rhône-Alpes: + 10 clubs
  • Provence Alpes Côtes d'Azur: + 8 clubs
  • Grand Est: + 6 clubs
  • Hauts de France: + 5 clubs

So this is the Occitanie region, a historic region of padel in France, which still seems to have been the most “dynamic” in recent months in terms of infrastructure construction.

To conclude this part, we thought to analyze the distribution of the pitches according to the clubs. Usually how many courts are there per club? Well the answer is as follows: 3 clubs out of 4 have less than 3 courts of padel. And only 5 clubs in France, have at least 10 pitches (WinWin Padel, Toulouse Padel
club, 4Padel Toulouse-Colomiers, Padel Attitude, Casa Padel).

winwin padel nimes

Animation and Competition

Infrastructures are essential elements making it possible to quantify the evolution of a sport, but we cannot carry out a complete statistical analysis without focusing on the players and the evolution of the various competitions.

Let's start our second analysis with a focus on practitioners. We counted approximately 80 in 000, in 2021 the figure would have risen to 150! An impressive increase which clearly demonstrates the growing importance of padel in the French sports landscape.

Regarding ranked players, the finding is similar. Yes in 2019 there were 7 ranked players with the FFT (6 men et 1 070 women), in 2021 the number of ranked players almost doubled, rising to 13 (11 men et 1 920 women). But if we analyze these figures, what does this mean in concrete terms? That we are witnessing continued growth in the number of classifieds, which is a very good thing.

On the other hand, these statistics lead us to raise an important point:  only 1 out of 7 players is female. The number speaks for itself. There is still a long way to go before we can speak of “equivalence” in terms of the number of players ranked in France.

Regarding tournaments, we notice that a tournament in two organized in France is a P100. We also note thatin 2021 (As of September 1, 2021), 1248 tournaments were recorded : of which 71% of men's tournaments, 21% of Ladies tournaments and 8% mixed tournaments.

It is important to specify that all the figures are not final for the year 2021 (which is not over) and it will be necessary to wait until at least 2022, in order to have a clearer visibility from a statistical point of view. However, these figures allow us to see the trends that emerge and allow us to be able to confirm our initial assertion: Yes the padel evolves in France.

Nasser Hoverini

Passionate about football, I discovered the padel in 2019. Since then, it's been crazy love with this sport to the point of abandoning my favorite sport.

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