By RJ Mitchell
IT may have a population of just over 2 million people and only declared its independence as recently as 2008 but the Republic of Kosovo is proving to be the driving force behind the spread of padel in the Balkans.
Formed in August last year the fledgling Kosovo Padel Federation has already been licensed as the sport’s governing body by the nation’s Ministry of Sport while it also has achieved full voting rights with the Kosovo Olympic Committee.
In July Padel Kosova opened the Be All padel centre in the nation’s capital of Pristina and already it is estimated that there have been 1,000 players in action on the three indoor courts.
While now in a fascinating interview with The Padel Paper, the KPF’s Secretary General Jusuf Kika reveals that the next major step for the organisation is to gain international recognition from FIP (International Padel Federation) as it looks to become a member of the game’s international community.
Yet there is no doubt that padel’s birth and growth in Kosovo has been conducted at a lightning pace and Kika said: “The idea to bring padel into Kosovo just developed 16 months ago and since then we developed the Kosovo Padel Federation last August and we registered the first padel clubs here in Kosovo in different cities and five are official and we are hoping to register more clubs in the near future.
“Also since we came into life and established the Federation we got established in the Kosovo Olympic Committee with full voting rights and also got licensed in the Ministry of Sports and we are the official governing body of padel in our country.
“In Kosovo there were no padel courts but we have a guy who is in Sweden but was born here in Kosovo and plays padel in Sweden and his name is Besim Shulemaja and with his help we created the Federation and brought padel here and also with his help we held two tournaments with our community in Sweden in Halmstad.
“This means we organised a showcase for our people and let them see that we are active and that what padel is all about and we held one event in December and the other in spring ’22.
“We also partnered with a legend of the Albanian International Football team called Lorik Cana, and he made a big investment with us and this allowed us to build the first padel courts here in Kosovo at the Be All padel centre.
“It was difficult to get funds from the state and so Besim (Shulemaja) also invested and partnered with us and we built the first padel courts in Kosovo in Pristina. It is an indoor padel centre with three courts at the moment and we have plans to expand with outdoor courts and also to look at different locations going forward.
“But the priority was to start something and to do that you must have courts as people need to play the sport and compete in tournaments, play in leagues, and also play with their friends and enjoy padel.
“We also have plans to create a padel academy and a padel league and we just want to promote our organisation and all that we are doing in Kosovo so that we can eventually get recognition from FIP.”
Despite its small geographical nature and fledgling national status Kosovo is proving to be the trailblazer for padel in the Balkans and there is no doubt that Kika’s personal enthusiasm for the sport, which burns down the line from Pristina, has a huge part to play in this.
It may be a hard-court game but the phrase ’not letting the grass grow under your feet’ could be the perfect motto for the Kosovo Padel Federation such is the zeal with which they are pursuing their padel missionary work as Kika continued to explain: “Kosovo is only two million people, so the population is small but we are trying to do our best.
“In Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Albania, padel is not developed but we are a small country trying to do our best to grow padel here and also all around the Balkans.
“So, we are also helping Albania and trying to help Montenegro and Serbia, if we can do something we will help them.
“At the moment in Kosovo we may only have the one centre in our capital in Pristina but within six months we hope to open another one and to keep going and if there are other people who want to open their own courts we want to support them as it is all about growing padel in Kosovo.
“The big problem is that there is zero information about padel in Kosovo and not a lot of people know about it. We have tried for the last year since we were created to tell the media about the Federation we haven’t had the coverage as up until now we didn’t have padel courts.
“But now after the opening of the centre in July we have already had 1,000 people playing padel and we have people now playing more than once a week and this is what we need.”
A certified UEFA football coach the appropriately named Kika admits that padel has replaced the beautiful game as the preeminent passion of his sporting life: “I myself play padel every week and outside padel I am a certified UEFA football coach and I have always loved football but now I have fallen in love with padel!
“At Padel Kosova eventually we want to put padel into our schools and universities but it is all about taking it step by step. The key part is for us to get recognised by FIP and we need to know more about what is required from us as a Federation to be recognised.
“So I am appealing for their help in this respect.”
