Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk has become an investor in a sport that has become a huge hit with footballers.
Van Dijk, 31, has joined forces with British tennis player and seven-time Grand Slam doubles winner Jamie Murray, brother of former Wimbledon champion and existing investor Andy Murray, and lauded tennis coach Jamie Delgado to become an investor in Game4Padel, a firm that claims to be the fastest growing business in the padel industry.
Padel has become a popular fitness pastime for professional footballers and has seen a boom in popularity to become one of the fastest-growing sports in the UK.
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The game, which has had its own World Tour established since 2005, sees competitors play on a court the third of the size of a tennis court, with scoring the same as tennis, with players able to use the walls to rebound the ball off in a similar fashion to squash. Padel balls are similar to that of tennis balls but with less pressure.
AC Milan striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic owns the state-of-the-art, purpose-built Padel Zenter club in Stockholm, Sweden, while Lionel Messi has installed his own padel court at his home.
Such has been the popularity of the sport among footballers that both Liverpool and Manchester City have built padel courts at their respective training bases. Reds boss Jurgen Klopp is understood to be a big admirer of the game.
Padel, which hopes to have inclusion in the Olympic Games by 2032, has soared in popularity not only in the UK but abroad. In Spain padel is the second biggest participation sport after football, with an estimated six million players and over 20,000 padel courts.
Said Van Dijk : "I really enjoy padel. It’s a fantastic way to relax after a match or training and it’s really sociable too. I have been really impressed by the Game4Padel team and their ambitions. I’ve seen how padel has really grown quickly in the Netherlands, and hopefully my involvement will help it grow here in the UK."
Padel saw a boom across mainland Europe during the pandemic, when contact sports that have traditionally drawn the highest participation rates such as football and basketball were off limits, while gyms and swimming pools were also deemed to risky due to Covid.
In countries such as Italy, who had one of the strictest European lockdowns early on, padel was taken up and has enjoyed a major boom since life returned to normal and restrictions were lifted.
For Van Dijk and his fellow investors, they believe that there is still room to grow for the sport, especially in the UK.
Michael Gradon, CEO of Game4Padel, which has 30 venues either opened or secured across the UK already, said: "Virgil, Jamie and Jamie are all amazing additions to our growing investor base at Game4Padel.
"We have over 70 investors and are hugely excited about having more of the world’s most iconic sports stars on board - they are clearly passionate about padel and we believe will help us to reach new audiences and encourage people who might not have heard of padel to try it out for themselves."
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