The world of padel was shaken by the news of the founding of the Premier Padel, this new top-level circuit.
This has caused some confusion among fans who do not follow the news, as it may not be clear what it is.
We at Racchettiamo have put together all the useful information to prepare for this event, trying to explain in detail what it means.
If you are interested in the top flight of padel and want to stay updated on all the news, then this article is definitely for you.
What is Premier Padel
In case you haven't heard the news, the world of professional padel is splitting in two and creating quite a few discontent.
The World Padel Tour, the top flight that we have always been used to knowing, now has a direct competitor in the Premier Padel.
In fact, although one would expect to find only one top league in the sport, a second one has been created since 2022.
Without mincing words, the Premier Padel aims to undermine the World Padel Tour as the highest competition in this sport.
But how is it possible that this thing happens? It would be like creating a second Champions League in football or another Formula 1 championship in which the same teams run or play.
Well, here things get complicated and get mixed up with legal disputes and, of course, with financial issues as well.
Why Does Premier Padel Exist?
The Premier Padel aims to solve a great problem of this sport, namely the very low economic reward that players receive for winning a tournament.
Do you know how much it takes whoever wins the maximum competition of the WPT? "Only" $ 17,000, a rather meager figure when compared to other sports.
This then only for the maximum tournament, the smaller ones have much lower prizes and, the second-tier players, certainly do not get rich thanks to these prizes.
The Premier Padel, in order to attract the great champions, has immediately awarded a cash prize of over $ 45,000 for the winner.
This obviously made players rush to sign up, but the WPT certainly didn't take it well, especially if we count that it has a contract with all the strongest padelists.
The top 20 players in the ranking, second contract with the WPT, are not allowed to play other tournaments other than theirs.
So how did they manage to participate in the Premier Padel? Simple, they didn't care and got a fine posthumously.
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WPT, FIP, and Premier Padel
From here, things get even more complicated, because it's time to figure out who actually moves the strings of the professional circuit.
There International Padel Federation and the World Padel Tour not only have nothing in common, but are also openly enemies for some time now.
The WPT is owned by a private Spanish company, which is guilty of not doing their utmost to promote this sport.
The WPT tournaments have in fact laughable media coverage, with only the semi-final and final broadcast on YouTube.
Premier Padel instead is an association created by Nasser Al-Khelaïfi which, if you are a little familiar with football, you have surely heard of it before.
It is in fact the spender owner of Paris Saint-Germain, a team that buys players at their weight in gold only to then lose punctually every year.
The International Padel Federation, tired of the unprofitable hegemony of the WPT, has decided to break away and take the parts of the Premier Padel.
So, the current situation is that there are two professional circuits, where in one the players want to play and, in the other, they have to play.
This angers the WPT, which holds the players contract only until 2023, after which they will be free to make other arrangements.
This applies to the male padel world while the female one is still reluctant to decide whether or not to embrace the novelty.
In any case, this situation cannot last long also because, in addition to all the tournaments in which players must participate, there are 10 other Premier Padel tournaments to burden their physique.
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Conclusions
If we were to tell you now how this is going to work out, we obviously don't know, but we can still make some assumptions.
As things currently stand, the Premier Padel offers money and guarantees that the WPT does not give and, perhaps, is not even willing to give.
The only thing keeping the WPT standing is these contracts, but they will expire at the end of next year.
The WPT has a few months to try to reverse the situation by finding an agreement with the FIP and with the players.
If we had to bet though, we would bet our money on the Premier Padel because, as we all know, the Qatari dollars always win.