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Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), the Qatari government-backed investment fund, has completed its takeover of World Padel Tour (WPT), the world latest sport to be funded by a Middle East investor.
QSI, which also owns the French football team Paris St Germain, agreed to acquire World Padel Tour, and the tour will be unified as a single global professional padel tour called Premier Padel, the Qatari investment vehicle said in a statement on Thursday.
No financial terms were disclosed for the deal which comes after months of negotiations between QSI and Damm, the owner of Setpoint Events, which organizes the WPT. Set to launch in 2024, the new competition will be governed by the International Padel Federation, said QSI.
For the remainder of the 2023 calendar year, the separate WPT and Premier Padel tours will be played as planned, while the unification of the competitions for the next calendar year, forming a single Premier Padel global tour is worked on.
Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, Chairman of QSI and Premier Padel, said: “This is an historic moment for the sport of padel, ultimately seeing the two leading professional padel tours unified as one single global Premier Padel tour under the governance of the International Padel Federation – starting next year."
Padel, a racket sport of Mexican origin and resembles tennis, is becoming increasingly popular across the world.
According to a report from Deloitte, the worldwide padel industry is valued at more than $2 billion and is forecast to surpass $4 billion by 2026.
The data suggested an optimistic projection that by 2026 there will be around 85,000 padel courts worldwide, more than double the current figure of almost 40,000.
(Reporting by Brinda Darasha; editing by Seban Scaria)
