The French-speaking association of Padel, the Table Tennis, Badminton, Squash and Pickleball federations have just signed a collaboration charter. Objective, pool their resources in order to achieve economies of scale. Among these racquet sports one is largely absent, the French-speaking Tennis association which is in conflict with the French-speaking Padel association.
At the initiative of the French-speaking association of Padel, the table tennis, badminton, squash and Pickleball federations have decided, through a charter, to join forces while respecting the specific identity of each discipline. The objective is to generate economies of scale. “The crux of the matter is money and we can dedicate a person to look for subsidies at the level of the French Community. A second example, logistics, buying common equipment instead of multiplying equipment for ‘all federations’ explains Marc Bourgeois, the general director of the French-speaking association of Padel. “The fact that there is a charter possibly allows us to rely on work that has already been done by another federation which can be adapted to ours. In some ways, it is a saving of time, it is a energy gain and somewhat uniformity compared to all racket sports” explains Jean-Marc Fraipont, the general secretary of the French-speaking Squash league.
For professionals in the sector, this association is positive, because all these sports share several common parameters. That’s why it’s easy to switch from one to the other. “On a physical level, we will find endurance, we will find resistance in certain sports, explosiveness in sports more like squash. On a tactical level, we will also find notions such as concentration, focus , attention, decision-making also on a mental level, we will really find a lot of parameters. So I think it’s a very good thing and we really find all these functions in a lot of sports. racket” explains Annabel Romedenne, a coach at Squash 22.
Among the racket sports mentioned in this charter, a big absentee is tennis and its French-speaking association, which also has a Padel and Pickleball branch. “Tennis has more of an economic vision of the situation and we have a vision totally based on the interest of the sport. We also wanted to set high standards regarding transparency, ethics which we unfortunately do not find in the side of the AFT The AFT has swallowed up padel and today Pickleball, this is one of the reasons why we do not have the same vision. We want to develop our own ecosystem, which is not the case. of the AFT” explains Marc Bourgeois, the general director of the French-speaking association of Padel.
Finally, a coordination committee will be set up to supervise the actions defined by the Charter. This committee will ensure respect for shared values and the development of new opportunities for cooperation.
