Sport England has delayed its decision on the future governance of pickleball until September.
As reported by Pickleball 52, the Sport England board had been scheduled to meet on 25 June to decide between rival applications from Pickleball England and the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) to become the sport’s officially recognised national governing body.
Pickleball England, established in 2019, is considered by the vast majority of pickleball’s tight-knit community to be the de facto governing body of the sport, having overseen its startling growth in England for the last five years.
Pickleball England’s development of the sport includes running the hugely popular annual English Open and English Nationals, developing a talent pathway, a coaching workforce and bespoke coaching qualifications, and building a network of national and regional directors and county representatives.
Pickleball England submitted its bid for official NGB recognition in April 2023. It is now 14 months on from that original application (and will be 17 months by the time Sport England’s Board reconvene to make its decision), but it is understood Pickleball England will not be able to re-submit its original bid to update it with the significant growth and achievements of the intervening period.
Karen Mitchell, Chair of Pickleball England, said: “Although our initial reaction to the delay of Sport England’s decision is disappointment, we actually take some encouragement from this news.
“Pickleball’s inclusion in the Active Lives Survey and the growth of the game since our application was submitted is the result of lots of hard work by volunteers dedicated to grow the sport at the club, region and national level, demonstrating the power of dedicated focus on one sport.
“The only issue is that we are not allowed to provide an update to our application to reflect these accomplishments. We believe that pickleball deserves its own governing body rather than being incorporated into the LTA. We hope the that is the conclusion of the Sport England Board in September.”
In a statement to Pickleball 52 in February, when the duel for NGB status first became public, the LTA said: “Pickleball is an exciting sport with a large potential cross-over audience amongst tennis players. 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.”
