The new members of the Board of Directors have been elected at the last Extraordinary General Assembly held on March 14 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The event was held at the headquarters of one of the most prestigious international organisations in the world, FIESP, the Federation of Industries of the State of Sao Paulo.

These elections were held in one of the most magnificent rooms of the building and the call was to elect the new members of the Board of Directors of IPF. The elected members were: Gabriel Souto, Hubert Picquier, José Luis García Frapolli, Alexander Pavy, Eduardo Langer and Héctor Parolín. We take this opportunity to welcome on board all of them and wish them the greatest success in this new cycle of IPF.

All the participants of the Assembly had the honor to be invited by the President of FIESP, Mr. Paulo Skaf, to a lunch in these facilities. Accompanied by an outstanding atmosphere and some personalities – who are in the forefront of the business market in the country as well as public figures, such as the same mayor of Sao Paulo, Mr. Bruno Covas – IPF lived a pleasant and very warm welcome.

The mayor of the city, wanted to congratulate the assembly members and also congratulate our President, Mr. Luigi Carraro, for the event, as well as he wished all the best to our sport. Mr. Bruno Covas was later gifted with a padel racket, courtesy of the Brazilian Padel Confederation and delivered by its President Mr. Eduardo Langer, which the Mayor received with open arms.

From IPF, we want to thank all the organising team of the event, which was run by the staff of FIESP and whose excellence and attention with the assembly members and all of us was exquisite.

It has been a quite busy start for our new president having had important meetings on his first days of mandate.

Luigi Carraro, recently elected as FIP President, takes the first steps to approach our sport to the Olympic Movement already. Surrounded by public personalities and institutions that represent the sport on the top level, Carraro has been welcomed by the Italian Olympic Committee as well as by the International Olympic Committee earlier this week.

Both Olympic sports institutions gave a warm welcome to Carraro and they congratulated him for his new position. They also showed their interest in padel as a possible key sport in the near future.

Last Monday, 5^th of November, Carraro was invited to the Italian Olympic Committee to be publicly recognised and congratulated as FIP president. He was welcomed by Giangranco Nirdaci, President of the Italian Padel Committee, Giovanni Malago, CONI President and Carlo Mornati, CONI General Secretary.

(L-R): Giovanni Malago, CONI President; Luigi Carraro, FIP President; Giangranco Nirdaci, President of the Italian Padel Committee and Carlo Mornati, CONI General Secretary

Some days later, Thursday 8^th of November, Carraro met the IOC President, Thomas Bach, in Rome. Given the support shown by the Olympic Movement, Carraro is very optimistic and he is glad to have such a successful start as President.

(L-R) Luigi Carraro, FIP President with Thomas Bach, IOC President

The main representative leaders in sports and Olimpism have been introduced to padel these days. We hope that this can be the beginning of the inclusion of padel into the Olympic family anytime soon.