Who governs padel internationally?

The International Padel Federation (FIP) is the global governing body for padel. Founded in 1991 and based in Lausanne, Switzerland, it sets the official rules, organises the World Championships, and represents 60+ national federations.

What is Premier Padel?

Premier Padel is the top professional padel tour, launched in 2022 by the FIP in partnership with Qatar Sports Investments (QSI). It replaced the World Padel Tour as the highest tier of professional padel competition.

Does the World Padel Tour still exist?

The World Padel Tour (WPT) continues to operate but is no longer the top tier of professional padel. Since 2022, Premier Padel has taken over as the premier circuit, with the WPT occupying a secondary role in the professional landscape.

A1 Padel (formerly APT Padel Tour) is an alternative professional padel circuit founded by Argentine players. It focuses primarily on Latin American markets and provides a competitive pathway outside the FIP-governed Premier Padel structure.

Which country has the most padel players?

Spain has the largest padel player base in the world, with millions of registered players and over 20,000 courts. Argentina is the second largest padel nation, followed by growing markets in Italy, Sweden, and France.

Is padel recognised by the International Olympic Committee?

As of 2026, padel is not yet an Olympic sport. The FIP has been actively pursuing IOC recognition, and the sport's inclusion in multi-sport events like the Pan American Games is seen as a step toward eventual Olympic participation.

Padel Governing Bodies — FIP, Premier Padel, WPT and More

Padel is played in over 90 countries and continues to grow at a remarkable rate, but the organisational landscape behind the sport has undergone significant change in recent years. Understanding who governs padel — from the international federation to the professional tours and national bodies — is essential to understanding the sport’s current trajectory.

This guide covers every major organisation shaping padel in 2026. For the full story of how the sport reached this point, see our history of padel.

FIP — International Padel Federation

The International Padel Federation (Federación Internacional de Padel, or FIP) is the global governing body for padel. Founded in 1991 by Spain, Argentina, and Uruguay, the FIP has grown to represent more than 60 member nations across all continents. Its headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland — a deliberate choice that aligns the federation with the International Olympic Committee and other global sports bodies based in the same city.

What the FIP does

The FIP’s core responsibilities include:

Setting the official rules of padel — most recently revised in the January 2026 FIP rule revision, which updated regulations on court specifications, scoring, and equipment
Organising the Padel World Championships — the premier international team competition, first held in 1992
Coordinating with national federations to develop the sport at grassroots and competitive levels
Pursuing Olympic recognition — one of the FIP’s long-term strategic goals, which gained momentum as the sport’s global participation numbers exceeded 25 million players

The FIP also oversees the qualification structure for the World Championships and works with continental confederations to run regional competitions.

The FIP’s role in professionalisation

The FIP’s most significant recent move was partnering with Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) to launch Premier Padel in 2022. This effectively created a unified professional tour under the FIP’s governance umbrella — a model similar to how FIFA relates to professional football or World Athletics to track and field. The FIP sets the rules and competitive framework; Premier Padel delivers the tour.

Premier Padel — The Top Professional Tour

Premier Padel is the highest tier of professional padel competition worldwide. Launched in 2022 as a joint venture between the FIP and Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), it replaced the World Padel Tour as the sport’s flagship circuit.

How Premier Padel works

The tour operates a tiered event structure:

Major events — the biggest tournaments on the calendar, introduced in 2023, with the largest prize money pools and ranking points
P1 and P2 events — high-level tour stops held across Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East
Challenger events — lower-tier tournaments providing pathways for emerging players

Premier Padel brought substantially higher prize money than the WPT era, attracting all of the world’s top-ranked players. The tour also secured improved broadcast deals, bringing padel to larger global audiences through television and streaming platforms.

Why Premier Padel was created

The creation of Premier Padel was driven by a structural problem in professional padel. Under the WPT model, the tour operated independently of the FIP, creating a split between the sport’s governing body and its primary competitive platform. Players, national federations, and the FIP itself pushed for a unified structure in which the international federation had governance oversight of the professional circuit.

QSI — the Qatari investment group that also owns Paris Saint-Germain football club — provided the financial backing to launch the new tour at a level that could immediately compete with and surpass the WPT.

World Padel Tour (WPT)

The World Padel Tour was founded in 2005 and served as the premier professional padel circuit for nearly two decades. During its peak years, the WPT was synonymous with professional padel — its events in Spain, Argentina, and eventually across Europe drew large crowds and produced the sport’s biggest stars.

The WPT era

The WPT professionalised padel in ways that had lasting impact:

It established a structured ranking system and full competitive calendar
It brought television coverage to padel for the first time at a significant scale
It created the economic model — sponsorship, prize money, player contracts — that made full-time professional padel viable
Legendary players like Fernando Belasteguin, Juan Martin Diaz, Gemma Triay, and Alejandra Salazar built their careers primarily on the WPT circuit

The transition to Premier Padel

The WPT’s position changed fundamentally in 2022 when Premier Padel launched. Top players moved to the new FIP-backed tour, and the WPT lost its status as the undisputed top circuit. As of 2026, the WPT still operates events but occupies a secondary tier in the professional padel hierarchy. The relationship between the WPT and the FIP/Premier Padel structure has been a source of ongoing negotiation, with discussions around integration or formal tiering continuing.

A1 Padel (formerly APT Padel Tour)

A1 Padel — originally launched as the APT Padel Tour — is an alternative professional circuit that provides competition outside the FIP-governed Premier Padel ecosystem.

Origins and focus

The APT Padel Tour was founded by a group of Argentine players who felt that the WPT-dominated landscape did not serve Latin American players well enough. The tour focused on Latin American markets, hosting events in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and other South American countries, as well as some European stops.

After rebranding to A1 Padel, the circuit continued to offer a competitive pathway for players who were not on the Premier Padel tour. It operates with lower prize money than Premier Padel but plays an important role in player development, particularly in South America.

Relationship with other tours

A1 Padel occupies a position roughly analogous to a challenger or secondary tour in tennis. While Premier Padel has the top players and the largest events, A1 Padel provides competitive opportunities at a professional level that feed into the broader padel ecosystem. The long-term question is whether the sport will consolidate into a fully unified structure under the FIP, or whether alternative circuits like A1 Padel will continue to coexist.

National Federations — The Grassroots of Global Padel

The FIP’s structure rests on its network of national federations, each responsible for developing the sport within their country. These federations run domestic leagues, train referees and coaches, manage national teams, and build the grassroots infrastructure that feeds into the professional level.

Key national federations

FEP (Federacion Espanola de Padel) — Spain. The largest and most established national federation. Spain has over 20,000 padel courts and millions of registered players. The FEP organises the domestic league structure and has been instrumental in setting standards that other federations follow.
APA (Asociacion de Padel Argentino) — Argentina. The second powerhouse of padel. Argentina has produced a disproportionate number of top professional players and has a deeply embedded padel culture dating back to the 1980s.
FFT Padel Division (Federation Francaise de Tennis) — France. Padel in France is governed under the umbrella of the tennis federation. France has seen rapid growth since 2020, with court construction booming across the country and a strong competitive scene emerging.
FPP (Federacao Portuguesa de Padel) — Portugal. Portugal has experienced significant padel growth, particularly in the Lisbon and Porto areas. The FPP coordinates a growing domestic circuit and manages the national team programme.
Swedish Padel Association (Svenska Padelförbundet) — Sweden. A standout story in European padel. Sweden began building courts around 2015 and experienced explosive growth — by 2024 it had more padel courts per capita than any country except Spain. The Nordic padel boom was largely driven by Sweden.
FITP (Federazione Italiana Tennis e Padel) — Italy. Italy’s padel boom began around 2019 and accelerated through the COVID period. The sport went from niche to mainstream in just a few years, and Italy now has one of the largest player bases in Europe.
LTA Padel (Lawn Tennis Association) — United Kingdom. Padel in the UK is governed by the LTA, which has invested in court construction and player development programmes. Growth has been steady, with particular concentration in London and the south-east.

How It All Fits Together — The Governance Hierarchy

The organisational structure of padel in 2026 can be understood as a layered system:

FIP sits at the top as the global governing body, setting rules and standards
Premier Padel operates the top professional tour under FIP governance
A1 Padel and the remnants of the WPT provide secondary professional competition
National federations govern the sport domestically and manage national teams
Continental confederations coordinate regional development and competition

This structure has been largely settled since 2022-2023, but the professional landscape is still evolving. The FIP’s ambition is a fully unified model — one governing body, one top tour, clear pathways from grassroots to professional — similar to the governance structures in tennis, football, or athletics.

The Future of Padel Organisation

Several key developments will shape padel’s organisational future:

Olympic recognition remains the FIP’s most visible goal. Padel’s inclusion in the Pan American Games and the sport’s participation numbers strengthen its case, but IOC decisions are complex and multifactoral.
Tour unification — whether the WPT and A1 Padel will eventually be formally integrated into the Premier Padel structure, or continue as independent circuits
Emerging markets — as padel grows in the Middle East, Asia, and North America, new national federations will join the FIP and shift the balance of the sport’s governance
The 2026 FIP rules revision demonstrates the FIP’s active role in modernising the sport’s regulatory framework to keep pace with its growth

For a chronological view of how these organisations and events developed, see our padel timeline. And for the full story of the sport’s origins and growth, explore our complete history of padel.