Carraro’s letter to the Federations: “2024 will be a crucial year, let us work together for a great future”

Lausanne, 1 January 2024

Dear fellow Presidents,

The moment I decided to write you this letter for the year that has just begun, I felt deep in my heart the beauty of moments like this.

Travelling back in time makes you savour again the emotions of an extraordinary year, while you are already caressing the goals and plans for the future. Usually, this is when you take a moment for yourself to think about what has happened in the year that has just passed; about all the facts, the emotions and the sporting achievements reached together with all of you.

Then, we indulge in tomorrow by drawing the future we hope for, which will become true if we continue to work being united as a big family, as we have done so far. And then we prepare a list of projects, goals and improvements and we travel into the future of our sport – our sport, Padel – that so far, we have shaped in the name of our common passion, enthusiasm, desire to make ourselves available to one another.

I must confess that drawing a precise line between the past and the future is not an easy task. Nor is easy separating what we have accomplished last year from what we will do in 2024. In fact, no matter how hard I have tried, it has not been possible for me: everything that our FIP family has accomplished in 2023-pardon the paradox-is the past that does not fade away but rather becomes the future: what has been is what will be.

I think back to the great success of the European Games in Krakow, which not only enhanced the team competition model, but also charted a clear path toward the Olympic goal; To the achievement of an extraordinary goal: the creation a single calendar and ranking governed by FIP; To the incredible success of the Junior’s World championships in Paraguay-supported by an entire country-that clearly stated how the future of our sport is enshrined in the talent of the youngest players; And, again, to the excitement of the Pan American Games in Venezuela, which confirmed how united and global our sport is in the effort of all the Federations of FIP family.

Each of these major events in 2023 represented a stepping stone to the future.

A future in which we will all travel together, determined and fast. United toward the goals. The latter is precisely the pivotal concept with which we must identify: being united. And it is no coincidence that we will finally have one big professional circuit with Premier Padel in a single calendar that also includes the Cupra Fip Tour – the backbone of the discipline on five continents – and a single men’s and women’s ranking. All this, governed by FIP.

We have succeeded in putting FIP and the national federations at the center of our sport globally, and by virtue of this unity of purpose and enthusiasm, we will make junior and senior, individual and team competitions more and more beautiful, performing and important.

With only a few hours to go before the start of this 2024, which promises to be crucial for the world of Padel, I can say that I look to the future with serenity and the knowledge that working all together, united as we have done so far, we will find no limits that cannot be broken in building a great, extraordinary future for our beloved sport.

Happy Padel to everyone,

Luigi Carraro

President