On the occasion of the presentation of the second edition of the Greenweez Paris Major Premier Padel this Thursday in Aubervilliers, Padel Magazine was able to speak with Gilles Moretton, president of the French Tennis Federation. The ex-tennis player spoke about the ambitions of the Federation but also about what he thinks of the conflict between the WPT and Premier Padel.
It is necessary to display our ambitions
“As with many things we do at the Federation, we wanted to innovate, to move the lines a little. The mission of a federation is to develop padel. Although we have made a lot of progress, we felt it was necessary to hold an event to announce our ambitions.
“We are going to go there crescendo. We did an event last year on a date that we didn’t really have a choice. But we had to take a position and it is important that we FFT position ourselves with the International Federation. By teaming up with our strike force, Roland-Garros, we brought back something important and they are aware of it. Now we have to go step by step. Open the top when we can do it, we will do it of course but not only. We must also develop the construction of padel tracks, our teams in the regions. It should not be forgotten that the Federation functions in a pyramid. The Greenweez Paris Major is the top of this pyramid but behind there are still many things to build and solidify.”
“Let padel and tennis be the same at Roland-Garros in 20 years”
“If we started on this at Roland-Garros, it’s not to make an event that we could have organized in a club, let’s say traditional. The ambition that is ours today is to see each other again in twenty years with a Roland-Garros tennis and another padel, and that they are the same. And we must not forget that if we go back a little in history, tennis has been there too. Before this tournament was not “successful” like today and was not played at Roland-Garros. It was only from 1928 that we arrived here. Things are accelerating and they will go much faster with padel.”
“A name change for the FFT? Not for today.”
“I’ll give you right away the reason why they changed their name like that (in Italy), it will calm you down (laughs). The president who is in place has been there for twenty years and normally he can no longer continue because he has reached the end of his terms. So the only way for him to be able to continue practicing was to change the name of the Federation.
With us it will be the same thing because we have a new sports law which stipulates that we cannot serve more than three terms as president of a federation and league. In Italy I don’t know the rule but having discussed it with him, the way to circumvent it was to create a new name. It is interesting to talk about it but today it is not on the agenda. We consider padel in the same way as tennis, because we put significant means of development, which was not necessarily the case before I arrived. The padel was stored in a drawer like beach tennis. We took it out and I’m telling you honestly, today we are a four-racquet federation. […] We also consider these four disciplines at the same level.”
“400,000 practitioners in France”
“We have 36,000 padel licensees, and we know that 155,000 reserve land on Ten’up. And behind it we could see that we have a lot of practitioners who go to clubs, do hourly rentals and that number is estimated at 400,000. This means that if we had an entity solely dedicated to padel, this federation would be one of the five largest entities in France. We would be at the level of judo, golf.”
“I don’t want to see three circuits”
“My concern, my priority is the French Tennis Federation. It is normal that one associates with an International Federation and not with a private company, although the World Padel Tour has done a remarkable job. Today we made a choice, which is strategic because by creating a tournament at Roland-Garros we have brought notoriety to Premier Padel. I am quite confident. So yes there is politics because things have already changed a bit. […] I also don’t want there to be three circuits like when we arrived because we don’t understand anything anymore. I appeal to the wisdom of each other to come together in a common interest, which is the development and promotion of padel.”
Find the interview in full below.
Future naturopath and passionate about padel, Seb is the health / food gentleman of Padel Magazine. He juggles between pala, quinoa and essential oils. For almost two years now he has been dealing with the news of the little yellow ball with the same passion.
2023-07-10 08:40:05
#Gilles #Moretton #Padel #level #judo #golf
