In the new Competition Guide Padel 2021, the FFT has inserted a surprising paragraph which concerns clubs and tournament organizers padel and the ladies' events.
The French Tennis Federation asks clubs not to forget the women's tournaments of padel in their annual calendar. For this, it relies on the Regional Commission of Padel to ensure that clubs comply with these regulations.
The intention is obviously very good. But :
Before analyzing the words of the FFT and the competition guide, it is interesting to come back to what we are talking about.
Out of 11.000 licensees padel, 1.500 are women, or 13% of competitors, which we allow ourselves to reduce to 10% compared to the number of competitors who have only played once in competition over the last 12 months.
Roughly, 1 in 10 competitors is female.
We must add to these figures 2 important elements:
Result :
Paradoxically, clubs have generally been very active on this subject for several years by trying to organize padel ladies. What little we have we owe them.
The number of competitors in a ladies' event remains very moderate and often not very profitable for an organizer. However, although the clubs are doing a lot, the result is relentless today: there is clearly a shortage of female competitors.
Some players sometimes tend to prefer a men's tournament, for obvious reasons:
And the major P1000 and P2000 events meet with very moderate success. Tournaments are rarely 100% full and the level differences are too great.
Our opinion / our questions:
In our opinion, the FFT is making an error in form as well as in substance. This policy even seems clumsy towards the clubs by obliging them to organize ladies' tournaments. As if the clubs weren't doing the job when they've been investing in it for several years ...
How much will this policy cost clubs? Is this the right time to do it?
The French Tennis Federation has focused on 2 aspects:
1. For the P1000: the clubs of padel which offer more than 3 padel must offer a ladies tournament in parallel. Please note, the FFT leaves the choice to the organizer to choose its category. Therefore, just because the organizer offers a men's P1000 does not mean that he will have to do a ladies' P1000.
2. An obligation to have a ladies' tournament after a possible succession of 3 men's tournaments in a row. Basically, after 3 successive men's tournaments, a ladies tournament is compulsory.
Here is what the Competition Guide says:
Any club organizing a P 1000 Men must offer, simultaneously, and if its number of pitches allows (> 3), a women's event in a category of its choice.
Any club having made 3 consecutive requests for homologation without any women's event, will have the obligation to propose, at the time of its next homologation request, a women's event of a category of its choice.
The Regional Commission of Padel will ensure that these rules are respected.
Clubs and organizers are already particularly affected by the health crisis. This type of obligation for clubs risks having a boomerang effect for the FFT.
Indeed, if we fully understand the reason for this policy, it seems very complicated to force the organizers to do ladies' tournaments if there are people or too few to do so. Clubs have every interest in offering ladies' competitions to increase their community and above all to please their players. But what if the demand does not exist.
And we can not say that the clubs are not already trying ...
Our opinion :
Be careful not to throw everything into this guide to the 2021 competition. The FFT has worked a lot, and even reworked certain aspects of its regulations, but it is a shame to include this type of comments which tarnish many other themes. positive.