The organizers throw in the towel for the two FIPs (RISE and GOLD) in Catalonia

Bad news for the padel French: le FIP GOLD Perpignan and FIP RISE of Canet-en-Roussillon will not happen in 2023.

These two international tournaments which launched the FIP Tour events in France will remain engraved in stone. Despite the success of previous editions, they are canceled.

Without jargon, the DNA association Padel, promoter of these two events, explains the reasons and alerts us to certain excesses.

A baby who will not celebrate his third year in 2023

“We will start on the positive. First, we succeeded 3 years ago in launching the first edition of the FIP RISE Canet-en-Roussillon. It was the first international event (FIP Tour) in France as part of the circuit of the International Federation of Padel.

This event was to celebrate its third candle this year. There is inevitably a little sadness because it is a bit the baby of the whole team, the volunteers, the players, the many clubs in the region, and our partners who have trusted us since the beginning of the adventure. .

This FIP Rise had become an appointment. Its cancellation was not done lightly. And nothing says that the event will not come back next year.

During these two years, we managed to offer a track with an arena of 1000 seats at the beach of Canet-en-Roussillon. Imagine the work done… the success exceeded our expectations.

The City supported us and can be proud of it. While everything was green for this year, she decided not to renew the partnership at the last moment. Sportingly, humanly, socially, we had nevertheless managed to tick all the boxes… We will try to continue the adventure in 2024, the year of the Olympic Games.”

The FIP GOLD Perpignan cancelled: not the same conditions for all...

“FIP GOLD Perpignan found itself faced with three major problems:

First, the choice of FIP to announce to us a few months ago that it was also necessary to make a ladies' tournament and this while the only FIP GOLD in 2023, disputed in Dubai was only a men's tournament. Incidentally, an event that took place in an indoor sports complex and therefore with far fewer constraints than in a public square. The additional cost was around €35.000.

For the record, to date, the next FIP Gold and even a Platinum will only be offered to gentlemen...

Of course we would have liked to do a ladies event. But we are confronted with an economic logic imposed by the specifications of the FIP and also by the general organization which would have been abused.

Then, the specifications of a GOLD FIP became even more restrictive this year for promoters. Unless you do it in a club, to be a millionaire or to find a patron, doing a FIP GOLD in France in a public place is almost impossible. Despite all these headwinds, we hoped to find the partners to balance the budget.

Finally, the icing on the cake, the FIP warned us a few weeks ago that a Platinium FIP could take place on the same dates as the Gold FIP and offered to shift the date and help us set up the ladies' event in return… Clearly, the FIP asked us to change the date of our FIP GOLD which took place in a public square.

FIP Gold, under these conditions, could therefore no longer be done.”

Attention to the drifts

“It is important to respect the institutions and in this case the International Federation of Padel. FIP benefits from a global boom. And we all benefit from it. The FIP should respect the work of the promoters a little more and help them. She imposes her partners on them, we pay her a fee to do a FIP Tour, and all the costs are borne by the promoter. In addition, we may have the risk of finding ourselves with several FIP tournaments in the same week, which means that we are not guaranteed to have a full field with players of all nationalities.

FIP should relax its CDC when a promoter serves its cause, the cause of the padel. For example, imposing that half of the advertising space on the central track be acquired from FIP partners, without any financial compensation from these brands, is very harsh.

Eventually, the FIP should encourage events in public places by proposing more flexible specifications, for example, and its partners could even intervene financially in the interest of all…”

Franck Binisti

Franck Binisti discovers the padel at the Club des Pyramides in 2009 in the Paris region. Since padel is part of his life. You often see him touring France going to cover the major events of padel French.