The UK pickleball community is throwing its support behind Pickleball England in its battle with the Lawn Tennis Association over guardianship of the sport.
Pickleball England has effectively run the sport in England since its inception in 2019 and has submitted a bid to Sport England to become the sport’s official National Governing Body. However, the LTA has submitted a bid of its own as it seeks to build on its acquisitions of padel and beach tennis.
The pickleball community’s vehement opposition to the LTA’s potential governance has seen an online petition signed by almost 2,500 people in its first 10 days.
The petition was created by Alex Richards who, ironically enough, is a former US college-level tennis player and current tennis coach and referee. He plays pickleball and padel recreationally in his hometown of Cardiff.
Alex told pickleball52.com: “I don’t think the LTA being in charge would be good for pickleball because the LTA are mainly focused on tennis. As shown in their takeover of beach tennis, which I used to play, it wasn’t really a success.
“To say that all pickleball players are now just playing a subcategory of tennis would be wrong. Pickleball needs its own dedicated governing body run by people who are passionate about the sport.
“There has to be a reason why the LTA are making this move. If it’s just to increase participation numbers or to control the growth of rival racket or paddle sports that are posing a threat to their core interest, these are not good enough reasons to become a governing body.
“I’m hoping that the petition can be used to show Sport England that there’s a groundswell of support for Pickleball England’s campaign for governing body status.”
Pickleball England’s cause has also received support from Katherine Knowles, who is part of a seven-strong committee seeking to be recognised as the official pickleball governing body in Wales. She says they have received positive initial feedback from Sport Wales and have the support of the European Pickleball Federation.
Katherine told us: “What Pickleball England’s directors and its network of regional leaders and clubs have done voluntarily to grow pickleball to its current position of strength is remarkable. To have the results of all that hard work snatched away from them by the LTA would be a crying shame.
“Pickleball is a sport in its own right, not a form of tennis. Pickleball is the most inclusive and social sport I’ve ever come across – it’s a sport that can change lives. We would like to protect pickleball and its unique community from the control of the LTA.”
The battle to run pickleball became public last month after Conservative MP Andrew Selous raised the question of its status in the House of Commons and an article in the Daily Telegraph highlighted its governance ‘custody battle’.
It has prompted the pickleball community to take a keen interest in the LTA’s governance of padel since the federation took control of the sport in 2019. Padel has exploded in the five years since then, but how much credit the LTA can claim for that growth is hotly debated.
Unlike pickleball, which has seen organic growth in the leisure centres and village halls of the shires, much of padel’s rapid development has been driven by huge private investment, with new clubs opening up in the big cities, in addition to smaller numbers of courts added at private tennis clubs (as well as golf, rugby and football clubs).
After taking over padel, the LTA initially offered interest-free loans of up to £250,000 for existing tennis venues who wished to add padel courts. The offer stipulated that non-members must be given permission to use the courts too.
The padel chairman of one tennis and squash club, who wished to remain anonymous, has revealed his experience of applying for one of these LTA loans to build padel courts. He says the process became weighed down by the addition of unexpected extra conditions on the loan being approved – including dictating the price at which the courts could be offered for hire to members of the public.
He said: “It became untenable and we moved forwards as a club on our own. The whole experience left a very bad taste in the mouth. The LTA are the governing body so we will have to work with them in future to some extent, but I would do so grudgingly and only so far as we have to. If any other options for future bodies to work with were put forwards, I would choose those first.”
When contacted by pickeball52 about its application for governing body status of pickleball in opposition to that of Pickleball England, an LTA spokesperson said: “We believe that the LTA’s relationship with over 15,000 registered venues, 1.5m tennis fans on our database and an existing infrastructure around coaching, safeguarding, facility investment and workforce could be hugely beneficial to pickleball and help it to grow and flourish.
“We were open to collaborating with Pickleball England on any application to Sport England for NGB status and approached them to explore this, but ultimately they chose to put in a separate application.”
Pickleball England Chair Karen Mitchell said: “To be clear, we had already submitted our application to Sport England in April 2023 and our first meeting with the LTA was June 2023. We have always wanted our application to be reviewed on its own merit. We are still open to collaborating with the LTA in the future.”
All I see is “I want to control the money” from pickleball England. They should go with the TLA and get the sport recognized easier.