The Italian press echoes the Padel World Summit

• Full publication of Corriere dello Sport.

The Cluster International Padel (CIP) is an international association founded in May 2020 and based in Barcelona, which brings together the main world brands that operate in the padel industry. It has a significant number of members, currently 95 companies and more than 130 brands, ranging from manufacturers of rackets, clothing, footwear, accessories, balls, courts, covers, to organizers of dedicated fairs and congresses. The objective is to put pressure on the padel industry and in 2024, three years after its foundation, the CIP will organize the first World Paddle Summit in Malaga from June 18 to 20. We met with the president of the Cluster, Jorge Gómez de la Vega, who also holds the position of CEO of StarVie, one of the most important racket brands. With him we discover how the project came about and what its goals and objectives are.

When was the idea of founding the group born and who carried it out?

In 2017, the main brands of padel rackets and balls came together to shape the creation of a platform that would serve to collect data on sales of paddles and balls, the current DataPadel.

These same brands, along with others that joined the project, promoted grouping into an association that defended the interests of all companies in the padel universe. It had already been tried before, without much success, but at that time, in February 2020 with padel on the starting ramp, it was more necessary than ever to be able to create the Cluster. And from the first moment the reception was spectacular. Now perhaps it seems obvious to us how important it is, for any sector, that its reference brands come together and set common objectives, but until then the padel was disunited and went free. But the padel sector and mainly the industry, understood that it was about taking advantage of this union and the fact that the brands themselves were the ones who promoted the association has been, from day one, the best guarantee for its consolidation.

What are the guidelines of the association? What are the objectives?

The Cluster was born with a very clear objective: to bring together all the players in the world of padel under an international cluster that could act as a Lobby, representing and defending professional and business interests before all kinds of organizations. And today it is quite clear that this objective of representativeness has already been achieved. qualitatively and quantitatively. Not surprisingly, we have achieved, in a relatively quick time, a very solid base by uniting and grouping the main specialist companies in the padel market. As of today, the Cluster has more than 95 associated companies -representing more than 130 brands-, among which are the main leaders in the rackets, balls, textiles, footwear and accessories industry and also the main world manufacturers of facilities, as well as other benchmark companies in the padel universe.

The priorities of the cluster are, from its start-up, to promote the sporting practice of this sport, promote and foster its internationalization, promote padel as an Olympic sport and promote sustainability in all areas of action. It will also be a priority to promote international initiatives to position companies in reference markets, as well as attract companies from other countries to collaborate with the cluster and generate synergies. And all this without forgetting to work so that padel is managed from good practice in all its processes, and is committed to quality, development and protection of the common activity of all its associates. The goal, in the end, is for padel to grow and so do our associates.

Future plans?

We are a relatively young association, in May we will be three years old, so our main objectives are to consolidate ourselves as a business integrator and consolidate the achievements we have achieved in these years. Mainly, to continue with the roadmap that the board set for us when we launched the association. In this sense, it is evident that our main challenge for the future in the short and medium term is to continue gaining strength as an association, representing and defending the interests of our associates. We will continue working on aspects as important as promoting and encouraging the practice, promoting internationalization, working so that, sooner rather than later, this sport can be Olympic… As I said, it is about continuing to work on the great objectives that we set ourselves from the first day and keep lookingpadel