The latest twist in the long running battle between the World Padel Tour (WPT) and the International Padel Federation (FIP), Premier Padel and the Professional Players Association (PPA) has done nothing to resolve the issues between either side.
In May Estrella Damm, who own WPT, took legal action against FIP, the PPA and Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) over Premier Padel which launched earlier this year.
But in July WPT were dealt a hammer blow when they found they could no longer bring a joint arbitration lawsuit against players who had competed on the Premier Padel circuit.
Now in a move that smacks of desperation WPT has announced that its current lawsuit against the players will be dropped if the latter sign up to a new deal to join a putative closed ‘Super League’ competitive format, culminating in a $500,000 World Masters Final.
Yet while the announcement, which was trumpeted in the Spanish press, appears to admit WPT have in all but name been in breach of European law all along, there are still three key areas that remain to be resolved.
Firstly the PPA are rightly still furious at the initial action, while key elements of that original action still remain, not least Estrella Damm (WPT owners) are still currently suing the players for €25million in a classic case of: ‘If you don’t join us, we won’t drop our €25M lawsuit.’
While the elite women players who were expecting equal pay have barely been given 50%.
Now, speaking exclusively to The Padel Paper on grounds of anonymity, a source close to Premier Padel said: “After all this noise for months, the malicious litigations against the players, the false promises to the industry – their (WPT/Estrella Damm) true colours are revealed.
“This is all about Estrella Damm and WPT’s self-interest and PR games. The most offensive aspect of the latest developments is WPT launching spurious litigations against the players for €25 million, which have no merit whatsoever.
“Now they are basically saying they’ll drop these cases, which in any case have no merit, if the players re-join them.
“Basically, it’s like a robber robbing a house and then saying he’ll give back the stolen items if the house-owner pays him some money for his own stolen items; it’s literally legal extortion, and an insult to the players and our industry.”
“Also, all this noise since the beginning about how WPT’s closed contracts are valid and not enslaving of the players – suddenly, the exclusivity clause has been dropped, I wonder why that is?’
“Perhaps because it’s completely against European law in the first place. The whole thing is comical. WPT suddenly pretending they’re Robin Hood, when in fact they’re still robbing the Hood.”
With World Padel Tour having suffered another hammer blow earlier this year when long term backers Rucio Investments sold its stake in Setpoint Investments, which owns the WPT. It has not been a good year for the organisation by any standard.
The dropping of the exclusivity clause requiring the players to compete only with WPT can indeed only be viewed as an acknowledgement that their current system is flawed under European law.
While scrutiny of the prize money on offer would seem to suggest this is also far from consistent and lacking in equality between the genders.
While 500,000 Euros for male and female players is on offer in the World Masters Finals parity ends there.
‘Big’ events will offer 600,000 Euros (US $587,000) for the men and 300,000 Euros (US $294,000) for the women.
Additionally, Men’s Open 300 events are set to have prize money of 300,000 Euros while women’s Open 150s will offer only 150,000 Euros.
Men’s Open 100 and Women’s Open 60 competitions will feature prize funds of 100,000 Euros and 60,000 Euros respectively.
All of which is slightly less than the rival Premier Padel competition and has left the elite level female players rightly furious.
It is understood that the men’s players boycotted a recent slated meeting, on the understandable grounds that they were subject to three separate lawsuits and a €25M fine while having faced a year of litigation.
All of which strongly suggests that the war of the tours is set to rumble on for some time and a case of watch this space if ever there was one!
