Minter Dialogue with Loïc Fery

In. a cross-published interview, initially done for the Joy of Padel podcast, I recently had the pleasure of hosting Loïc Fery, a fascinating figure in both the business and sports worlds. Loïc shared insights from his diverse career, including his role as founder of Chenavari Investments, owner of French football club FC Lorient and his recent venture into the world of padel.

We discussed the similarities and differences between managing a sports team and running a business, with Loïc emphasizing the unique emotional aspect of sports. He also shared his journey into padel, from his first encounter with the sport to co-founding, along with Pierre Gasly (F1 driver) and Diana Kyllmann, the 10 Padel team for the Hexagon Cup.

Loïc’s passion for padel was evident as he described the sport’s accessibility and social aspects. We explored the challenges of transitioning from tennis to padel and the intricacies of team selection for the Hexagon Cup.

The interview concluded with Loïc’s thoughts on the future of padel, including its potential inclusion in the Olympics and its growth in various markets. Overall, it was an enlightening conversation that highlighted the exciting developments in the world of padel.

Please send me your questions — as an audio file if you’d like — to nminterdial@gmail.com. Otherwise, below, you’ll find the show notes and, of course, you are invited to comment. If you liked the podcast, please take a moment to rate it here.

To connect with Loïc Fery:

• Find/follow Loic Fery on LinkedIn
• Find/follow Loic Fery on X (formerly Twitter)

Further resources for the Minter Dialogue podcast:

Meanwhile, you can find my other interviews on the Minter Dialogue Show in this podcast tab, on Megaphone or via Apple Podcasts. If you like the show, please go over to rate this podcast via RateThisPodcast! And for the francophones reading this, if you want to get more podcasts, you can also find my radio show en français over at: MinterDial.fr, on Megaphone or in iTunes. Music credit: The jingle at the beginning of the show is courtesy of my friend, Pierre Journel, author of the Guitar Channel. And, the new sign-off music is “A Convinced Man,” a song I co-wrote and recorded with Stephanie Singer back in the late 1980s (please excuse the quality of the sound!).

Transcription courtesy of Flowsend.ai, an AI full-service for podcasters

Minter Dial: I am delighted to have you on my show the Joy of Padel. You and I crossed paths at the Hexagon cup in Madrid, 2024, an exciting event and, and I wanted to have you on because you’ve gotten really invested in padel. Of course, you’ve got another life, you’ve done many things and I want to just have a little chat first of all about who is Loïc Fery?

Loïc Fery: Well, thank you, Minter. Thank you for having me. Well, I live in London. I’ve been a long time in London, more than 20 years. Before that I lived in. In Asia for five years and grew up in France. Studied in France and started to work in banking. And after some time I decided to be an entrepreneur in finance. So, since 2007 I basically run a fund called Chenavari. And so, basically I’ve been doing investing in basically credit markets and specialty finance market in Europe mainly. We manage around 5 billion, 5.5 billion to be precise. And have offices across Europe and the Middle East. And in sports, as you highlighted, I have been the owner and president of French football club since 2009, which I took over in 2009. And so, it’s my 16th season as president and owner of FC Lorient and have invested in this beautiful sport of padel. Now just over a year ago in the context of the Hexagon Cup. But I guess we will, we will talk about it in more detail.

Minter Dial: We surely shall. So, you know, I’m a brand guy. Loïc. What? Tell me about the. The in. How did you come up with that name for your fun?

Loïc Fery: Okay, so it’s a. It’s. I mean it’s a place in France. It’s. It’s actually a hill that I can see from my parents house in the Rhone Valley, exactly in between Marseille and Lyon. And so, basically it’s in a city called Rochemaure and Chenavari is the highest hill of that village. And that’s basically my place I grew up. Chenavari is a place where I like to run and you know, practice some sports when I was a kid. And when I started the firm, I decided to pick that name. Lots of people are telling me, is it Indian Italian? No, it’s not Indian Italian. It’s a place in France. But yeah, probably not the best name from a marketing standpoint for brand marketing guy that you are. You probably would say that. But yeah, after 17 years people have got used to it and now we’re well known as a relatively good fan.

Minter Dial: Well, you might be surprised, but I Absolutely adore your description of it, frankly. The issue is so many brands are, are done just for the branding component, whereas for you, the meaningfulness of it, every time you say it, I’m sure you have a little memory of your hill and, and, and, and your family. And so, that for me is.

Loïc Fery: Yeah. I mean, this is. And then. And yeah. And I think, you know, the first time at least you ask yourself, okay, what. What is. What is it? Where does it come from? And at least people remember probably a bit more than if it’s a, you know, like kind of the Blue. Blue Mountain type of, you know, type of names. But yeah, we. So, Che Navarre, Investment manager, is the name of the fund. Yes.

Minter Dial: Well, congratulations and all that. And I saw you got involved with L’Oreal as well on. In a tremendous project on Solstice. So, you are a man about town. I want to speak about your mantra, which you wrote on your Instagram account in French, it’s in English. You wrote believe it’s possible.

Loïc Fery: Yes. I mean, I mean, yeah, it’s just I. This is what I’m trying to pass to, to people around me is that, you know, we all have the right to, to have dreams and, and if we really believe in it, that we can make them happen. And so, yeah, I’ve always been raised by my parents and my environment into, you know. Yes. Pushing the limits. And so, we’re trying. That’s what we’re trying to do. And I like that motto. So, you know, that’s kind of governing. What I do is if we don’t believe that the impossible is possible, sometimes it’s. It can. Can get a bit boring. It doesn’t mean that you will always succeed, but when we fail, we learn. And, and so, yeah, I’ve always, I’ve always liked to. To believe that Croire, C’est Pouvoir, at least that it doesn’t make it, but it’s a. It’s a big part of it.

Minter Dial: Love it. So, an optimistic. We’re going to talk about success in a little while later, but I want to talk to you about Lorient because your football team, which is in Brittany on a fishing town, as I understand it is, is currently sitting at the top of league number two with three games to go. How exciting is this?

Loïc Fery: It’s very exciting. It’s very exciting. I mean, for. It’s very exciting because, you know, even though it’s at the lower league, I mean, we’ve most of the time been in the top league and, and we had a bit of a setback last year being relegated with we had like the one of the eight, seven or eight budget of the top league and we ended up to be relegated. So, I was a bit of a underperformance as I like to call it. But, but again, I mean, so it’s tough for the club, it’s tough for the fans, but we managed this year to really switch everyone into a new project. The, the project of going back to, to the top league as soon as possible. And it’s easier said than done. And we, yeah, so far the, so far the, the team has done, has done a great job. The coach, the coaching team and you know, locally also re engaging all the fans that, that, that makes that, that club unique. I mean this is a club that will be 100 years old next year in 20, in nine, in 2026 it will be 100 years old. So, it’s a big thing and we’d like to celebrate it obviously in the top league. So, I hope it’s going to be the case. But, but as we say, you know, competition are never finished until the last minute. Is the same in padels, the same in tennis. And so, we’ve been I think 90% of the season. We’ve been top of the league. We’re, we’re going to try to, to stay there for, for the remaining three matches, two home games, one away game. And, and let’s see. We’ll know, we’ll know mid-May where we stand.

Minter Dial: Super well, just like I’ve had on my other podcast similar dialogue, several sports players also many, many top executives. And you have this unique position where you are both business and running a sports team. And the question I have with figuring on success is how what are the crossovers as a businessman and running a sports team in crafting success and what are the things which are very different in the business world from the sports world.

Loïc Fery: So, first, I mean I, I ended up, you know, running, owning and running a football club despite football not being my main sport. You know, my sports initially originally is tennis and I’m a tennis player and I’ve played football a bit. But you know, most of my time has been spent on tennis courts and now a bit more padel courts. But I grew up seeing my father being president chairman of a handball club. You know, in France handball is a big thing. And so, in very near to Chenavari, you know, near the town where I grew up, there was a handball club and my dad on the pro bono basis, I mean obviously it was the amateur world has been chairing that club for many years and they went up divisions and you could see that connection and that, that, that the club was becoming important for the town and, and I really enjoy going to the, to the. It’s not stadium but it’s like the indoor hall, the indoor area now where the match took place. Matches took place and, and I’ve always liked that and I, and I wanted to, to experience this obviously ideally in a, in a sports that you know, had also a commercial angle and business angle. And I always felt well, I’d like to do that in a club where I can bring something maybe business sense and commercial sense, development sense and, but with a strong foundation on the, on the sports side. So, for, for several years, for many years in the early 2000 I, I looked at different clubs and potentially getting involved. I never imagined I would get involved in top league or second league and you know, I looked lower than that. But then eventually I was approached by someone that wanted to sell to exit FC Lorient. That was back in 2009. At that time I was in the early years of the fund here. So, I was very focused on my new asset management business and initially declined the opportunity to even go and look at it even though I knew that club because I spent a lot of time during my holidays. My parents were both teachers and we had long holidays and we were spending a lot of time in Brittany. It’s a region I really love. My first name actually Loïc is from Brittany. Just to show the attachments that my parents had for that region and long story short, I was convinced by the fact that yeah, FC Lorient was, was the club for me was a club that had a very strong sports history foundation, hasn’t had, had not played at the top, top, top level for a long time and, but there was very little in terms of infrastructure for the, for the club itself. There was like a few people working. There was not a real academy and so we, you know, I felt that I could bring something, a vision, a project and leverage the great things that there was on the sports side. And that’s, you know, the rest is history has been. It’s my 17th season and yeah, we’ve played 12 or 13 in the top division and, and yeah four in the second division. So, that has been quite a journey. And so, basically your question about the similarities between the business world and the differences between business world and sports world. I would say that I work in, so I’ve worked in capital market in banks and I run an alternative asset manager. So, basically sort of hedge fund Slash private credit fund. So, the one similarity that you have is that the, the people you rely on, top people on talents to make a difference. So, basically it’s not like you see your processes are important and everything, but it’s like the stars are the people, the talent and the stars are the people. So, obviously on the sports side they have a bit more of a media effect because they are very, you know, the press is talking about them a lot and everything. In the finance side probably they talk a bit less. But in the specialized area, I mean those guys are also very, very key. And you talk about transfers of football players. You, you obviously have star traders moving from one fund to another. So, it’s in terms of management of those ego slash talent and everything, it’s a bit the same. There are similarities and the one thing that works best is actually tough love. I mean, is that you know, you, you need to respect their talents but from the time you start treating them as stars and not as like just key members of a team that basically needs to be managed the similar way than any other person, then, then you’re, you’re in the wrong. You cannot manage them as stars. You, you basically cannot be in admiration or in all again, you know, looking at, at your key players. They need to be like members of the team and you need to love them, encourage them, but also be expecting a lot from them. And I think from what I think I brought to the club was also that it’s a club who had very good values, which are very important for me, but also is pushing the bar a little bit higher. Playing in the second division or the first division in itself is great but you know, we want more, we pushing people and I think we try to create something like this. So, they are like similarities but they are massive difference. Obviously, you know, you can lose a game, you know, on small things. They work all year and at the end of the day, you know, they go down maybe for one goal difference at the end of the year that makes a massive difference. Is it something that, you know, you could have planned, you could have worked better? No, I think the main difference is that those sports business, the main purpose is to fabricate emotion. So, basically we are emotion manufacturer. You know, we bring joy, you know, Joy of Padel. We bring joy to fans, we bring, you know, emotions to the fans, to, to the ecosystem of the city. And I think that’s really unique. You don’t find that in the business world. So, whether it’s on the football pitch, on the rugby pitch, on the tennis courts, on the padel Court. I mean, these sports businesses as a whole have that one particularity, the emotion that you’re not going to find in the business environment. And I think that’s why also it drives the interest of some, some entrepreneurs and, and businessmen into, into the sports, because that’s something that is really unique.

Minter Dial: And, and especially different basically from the way it is in finance. It’s not exactly an emotion. I mean, it creates emotions, but not the same.

Loïc Fery: I mean, obviously, when you have a good month or you have a good day and you, you, you, you’ve made the right decision on your investments and the funds benefit from it, it’s also satisfaction. You know, you’re very proud of what the team is doing here. There’s something more this being said. Being in sports is 80% of frustration and 20% of joy. You know, it’s like you always feel like because you are in sports, you know, it needs to go. Well, the reality is that, you know, that’s. Federer was saying this about, you know, in his career, I think he won 50, you know, 53.

Minter Dial: 53% of points.

Loïc Fery: Exactly. 53% of points. And, and he was like dominating the game. So, you know, it’s, it’s those tiny difference or tiny little details that at really the high level, it’s only minor details that makes a difference, but it’s the sum of all those details that makes that. That the club is the club or the team or whoever is on the pitch that is, that is working better than the opponent.

Minter Dial: I take a more philosophical approach because I don’t have your knowledge, but Victor Frankl, he said life is about suffering. And so, in this, you know, suffering, the pains and agonies, the boringness of doing the same shot over and over again, that’s how you get good. Right, let’s switch to padel.

Loïc Fery: Because just on that, on that, I disagree with this. I don’t say. I think that, that life is about learning. So, when we suffer, when we fail, it’s. It’s something that we need to, you know, to. Yeah, sometimes it’s hard, sometimes painful, but we, we improve. You know, it’s. I prefer the sentence of Mandela. Right. You never lose. You, you know, you always learn. I think it’s, it’s, it’s. Yeah, I don’t like the suffering aspect.

Minter Dial: Well, I don’t blame you. I suppose what he, he means by it is more learning through and getting through the difficulties. All right, so let’s switch to padel now. Had a great little chat about Lorient. That was beautiful. What about. So, you’ve been playing a lot of tennis. How and when did you get into padel?

Loïc Fery: Well, it’s very interesting because I think the first time I played padel was probably, I think, around 2012, 13, something like this. And believe it or not, the first time I played padel, I played in the Middle east, and. And I played singles. So, you know, I didn’t know about padel, obviously, but I played a single. And then we played early in the morning and. And then the people came in and told us, but, you know, that you should be four on that. On that pitch. And we were having fun. Two tennis players, you know, we were playing left and right and so on and so. So, it’s just for the anecdote, but the first time, I don’t remember the year exactly, but it was like early, after 2010 for sure. But between 2010 and 2012-13, that’s when I started to play padel. But. But I’ve been regularly playing tennis and occasionally playing padel. And I followed the rise of the sports, and it’s been a few years that I. I am absolutely convinced that padel has something that tennis doesn’t have, which is the. The. The relatively low barriers to entry for playing. You know, if you are a good tennis player and you play with someone that plays less well tennis, it’s difficult to have fun on the padel court. I think relatively quickly you can have fun with people from different level. A bit similarly to golf, to some extent, you know, if you’re patient in golf, you know, a very good player can play with a very bad player. It’s just going to. It’s just going to wait a little bit to. To go and pick up the balls, but. But they can share and have the same emotion. I think in padel, it’s, yeah, people quickly have fun. And I think the. The. So, the social aspect of padel was what struck me first. And then the. The. The next thing is I started to obviously, you know, follow a bit more when the. The competitive aspects of the sports. When. When my friend Nasser Al Haifi, the. The. The chairman of QSI, who’s also the president of PSG and I know quite well through football, I realized he actually helped close that deal on Premier padel. And basically there was the ambition of really developing a tour that was quite to the standard of other sports. And I realized quickly that I love sports, I know a lot about many sports, but I was absolutely unable to name the top 10 of the padel players, either men or women. I knew they were mainly Spanish or Argentinians, but of course, you know, a couple of names LeBron, Quail and but so, so basically I, I felt that yeah some, something needs to happen also on the competitive sports. So, the investment strategy on padel has been the one of first someone that is passionate about the development of the sport. So, I, I’d like to be involved in, in that development. And, and, and I suppose for me that both angle there is the, the, the day to day social aspects of padel and the growth of the course, the growth of number of players and there’s also the development of the tour and, and I think we’re you know will try to, to get, to get involved in on, on the both side of the game and, and yeah we have. Yeah, we. So, so that’s how the genesis of how we ended up founding 10 padel. And, and we can talk more about it of course if you, if you like.

Minter Dial: I do I would just to go back to you as a player playing tennis and padel. How do you switch do you feel, do you need to like change your gears when you go from one to the other? Because I obviously I observe a lot of players who are tennis players, they don’t quite get padel. How, how do you manage to organize yourself your mind?

Loïc Fery: Well, I mean I think. I’m not sure I’ve totally. I’m still in the transition, right. I mean it’s, I’m still, I’m not giving up tennis obviously. I really love those sports and, and, and I think relatively speaking I’m probably better at tennis than I am at padel. So, I’m still in this transition and I think I fell in the trap of any good tennis players that comes onto the padel court feels that they can play well, they hit harder than they should. They are thinking more about hitting the ball, you know, on the volley, especially the volley or the smash. You know, this match the racket is shorter, you know, at the beginning. Oh, you feel like you’re a good player and then all of a sudden.

Minter Dial: The ball comes back. Oh shit.

Loïc Fery: Yes, exactly. So, the tougher you hit the ball, the faster it comes back. So, it’s more about, it’s more of a strategy game. And that’s why I enjoy is that each time I play padel I feel like I learned something. And probably you probably improve when you realize that it’s more about angles, times and so on. And I have to say that attending you know, like top, top, top player matches and watching top players play has been a huge learning experience because you know, as someone that, you know, that understands the sports, you know, watching those players, both men and women, play. Yeah. Then there are things you try to replicate. Obviously you don’t, but at least you try. And, yes, it’s been so. It’s a great game. I haven’t solved the game. You know, it’s just like I’m still. I think there’s so many things to. And I wish I had a bit more time to also take more courses and lessons to keep improving. But, yeah, I felt that now the speed, the speed at which you play, the playing softer and looking more for angles and is obviously the way to go.

Minter Dial: What’s wonderful about it is that you and I’ve been playing for 51 years, is that I still feel like I’m learning. And part of that learning now, of course, is how to play at my age, because that, you know, whereas I could play differently when I was 20. You know, you have a different speed reactions and you. You can maybe sprint up and go back quickly, but now with the slower body and a different sort of physical abilities, I have to learn how to play within that boundary. So, the Hexagon cup, how did that come about? Was that Pierre coming to you or was that Enrique Buenaventura? How did that idea of investing in the hexagon cup team 10 padel come about?

Loïc Fery: No, so. So, actually we were contacted. I was contacted by the founder of Hexagon, Enrique, when.

Minter Dial: On the show.

Loïc Fery: Oh, yeah. I mean, he’s a. He’s a. He’s a key person of the sports, obviously. And. Yeah, and so basically, explain me what they had done in Formula E, his vision for. For. For. For. For that and for Hexagon cup. And to be completely true about it, is the one of the owner of. Of 11. 11. The team. So, Daniel Homedes, the team, let’s say American flavored team, with Eva Longoria of the Hexagon cup, who I had met while around the Miami Grand Prix because he owns a. He owns a padel. padel club over there. And so, I had Met actually the three partners of 10PAD, Pierre Gasly, myself and Diana Kilman. We both had been together at that Miami Grand Prix. Diana and I had met with Pierre Gasly and before the race, after the race, then we went in the evening, went out after the race, and. And going out there was like, oh, you guys are tennis players. And Pierre said, well, we should play padel. I said, oh, okay, let’s do it. And so, the next day we were playing at Dani’s club, Dani Homedes. Club and we played that game. CEO of Renault Pin also was there. And so, for the story, Pierre is playing quite often padel. And so, we lost that game. But through that, through that game and through that connection when, when then Danny told me, well you should look at Hexagon Cup. And then he introduced me to Enrique. I mean all those connections. And I said, you know what, I called Pierre, I said, you know, we should do this together. Are you in? And it took probably, I don’t know, 10 minutes to. To agree and do that. And so, though Pierre, Diana and I are now the, the owner of 10 padel. So, it’s one of the eight teams of Hexagon cup and we played our first exact one Cup. We have a great team with among others Claudia Fernandez on the woman’s side. Mike Young was on the, on the men’s side. And you know, we have, we, you know, among others. I’m not going to name them all, but yeah, we did well for our first event and we have the ambition to also be part in the development of this Hexagon Cup. We recently signed a very important agreement with the Tour and the International Federation. So, watch the space. Some things are coming on that front.

Minter Dial: Excited. I certainly enjoyed it myself. You wrote in a post impressive atmosphere in Madrid for the Hexagon cup which hosted the most impressive padel event of the tour. 8,000 fans every day cheering for the best padel players in the world. So, the, the team with, with Mike Yanguas and Claudia Fernandez as you’re sort of professional icons and of course you have the, the up and comers. How do you get to choose them? I mean, is there, is it like a lottery system in the American approach? Does it change every year? Or do you, are you going to keep Yanguas and Claudia Fernandez?

Loïc Fery: Oh, we basically I Don. Enrique, explain you. I mean each team has as. As franchise as one franchise woman player, one franchise man player. They sign a contract for a few years and, and then you, you basically have a sort of a draft system for, to complete the pair and depending on how you’ve done the previous year, you know, and how where you are ranked, you you can choose within the list to, to complete the next. The next player. And so, for example, on the men’s side, Javier Garrido was also one of the top player. And so, we were, we managed to convince him to, to come and join the team. And, and so basically last year Yanguas and Garrido who used to play together, exactly reunited that pair and, and that was. That was an incredible pair. And so. So, basically yeah, there’s this combination of franchise player who are in for several years combined with a draft mechanism and we got some help from, from some expert padel experts obviously, you know, on the management of the team. We had some of the great coaches as well on the bench that you, you need to, to basically also retain for the team. So, that’s, I mean it has been a great job that that was done. We created a nice team atmosphere. We arranged, you know, obviously there was the first time that all those people were playing together and like tennis, it’s a very, you know, let’s say not. Let’s not say exactly like tennis because it’s in doubles, but it’s. Could say it’s almost a bit of an individual sports. Right. And so, bringing this team spirit I think was something that they greatly enjoy. We had, we, you know, we arranged a couple of events, social events before the, before the events and we play bowling, we play snooker together. We had the team evening and we, we also had dinners together. So, I mean that’s creating that, that team bounding which, which was, which was great. And then obviously the event was in Madrid. Stadium was, was full. It’s the biggest prize money in the tour, as you said. It’s the biggest, biggest stadium. I think also if you put aside, I think maybe the French Open which has a bigger capacity, but this indoor approach is, you know, kind of felt a bit what you can feel when you go to Bercy for the, for the ATP 1000 or like what was happening in London for the ATP Finals in Canary Wharf. But yeah, it was very impressive. The only, and I told Enrique and the Hexagon guys, the only thing is that we did it really the Spanish way, I. E. You know, the games were like sometimes you were playing at one in the morning, so you feel like the Australian Open or the U.S. Open, you know, like when matches starts after midnight and complete. And I was impressed and amazed to see that the Spanish fans were still in the stadium at that very late time. And one of the reason, I think where we were a bit penalized is because two days in a row we finished the games very, very late in the early morning. And I think for the players it’s not also easy to adapt to that schedule. So, that’s something that we will, we’ll definitely work on for, for the next season.

Minter Dial: I can well imagine. But you know, I’ve had many great players on my show. If I’ve had Mike Yanguas of course the lovely Mike and I.

Loïc Fery: Magic Mike.

Minter Dial: Yeah yeah, well, and, and Javi is, is also a magical player when he’s on top of his game. You’re the, the decision to put two together. I mean systematically. Every pro talks about that challenge of having the right couple. Just like the challenge of finding the right spouse. It is at that level. So, when you are choosing in the draft, the, the knowledge of how Mike if he’s your franchise player is going to going to play with because he’s, he plays on the right. So, you need a left hand in a left sided player. All right, but who does he fit with? How does the chemistry go? Because you might get the best Beth player. Let’s say, you know, Tapia is Tapia and Yanguas the right combination. I mean you would imagine so. But really there’s also the knowledge and the ability to get together how they bond as a team.

Loïc Fery: Yeah, that’s where we, we use the, the knowledge of, of, you know, people who are on the tour. We are called the coaches the, you know, and, and we’ll try to, to have some contribution and, and then make the best choices. Obviously we made, we made the choice to, to recruit franchise players that basically, you know, play on the right as you said.

Minter Dial: And yeah, both Claudia and Mike.

Loïc Fery: Yeah, so which basically was a bit of an unusual choice because the other teams have the franchise players that play on the left. But that gives you more choices than to. There’s less competition in draft for that. But yeah, I mean at the end of the day we didn’t win the cup, but we did. We did. It was like our maiden cup and, and you know, there’s, it’s a learning experience and but I think we have a great team. I’m very proud of the guys, the way they’ve played the team, you know, and, and be, and consider the event as a, as a, as an important step in the, in the season and career. And I think Hexagon cup is working on rolling out other events throughout the calendar now that they have disagreement with the Tour and, and the International Federation. So, I think we will see more of that. And, and obviously you know, Rome has not been built in one year. You, you, you know, you basically strengthen the foundation of, of what we do. And Pierre Gasly, Diana Kyllman, myself, we are all quite competitive. So, so you know, we, we want to do better and we don’t want to over promise. So, we’re just doing our, doing our work and making sure we can, we can improve and next year play a, playing the semi-final of that, of that tournament.

Minter Dial: Yeah, because you finished at fifth, so.

Loïc Fery: Yeah, which is, which is actually good. You know, when you think that for your first year there’s eight team. I mean your fifth is. We lost a couple of matches on, on the tiebreak of the third set is. It’s just like we also had some injury issues. So, so actually we had a very good next gen player which you know, counts for one point also in, in each of the games and unfortunately we had, we had one injury that, that, that, that, that forced one of our next gen player to retire and that handicapped us because obviously then that was a replacement player but the replacement player didn’t have the same ranking and so she did, she did well. But you know, it’s, it’s just like it’s sports, you know, sometimes you have like the, the unforeseen. The unforeseen happens and, and the show must go on. The show must go on. You have to adapt. You have to. And, and I think we did, we did well.

Minter Dial: Well like in life, you know, we have to deal with the, the mistakes, the, the imperfections, the, the suffering as well. And, and that’s, that’s, that’s part of life. Last question for you, Loïc. In your position, what do you think is the future of padel and when do you think like yourself, I bet you’re pretty tied into what’s going on. When are we going to go to the Olympics?

Loïc Fery: Well, I mean I think the Olympics is going to be amazing to, to get padel at the Olympics. I think when you see the sports that are at the Olympics, you know, some very, very minor sports are the Olympics. And given the, the, the, the, the number of people involved in padel, number of players involved in padel, the growth of the sports, the impact it has from a media standpoint and so on. I would be extremely surprised that it doesn’t go to the Olympics at the next available opportunity. So, yeah, if I had to bet, I think it will be a demonstration sports at the nearest, at the next available opportunity. It’s not done, but it will happen. I think what’s next for padel is also the U.S. I think the U.S. and, and in Europe obviously we see growth, lots of growth in France, which was a bit late in the development of the game. Italy, France, Germany. I think those countries are definitely growing up. I heard recently that, so obviously I was in Middle east last week. This is actually in Dubai. It’s, it’s actually Incredible. The number, the growth of the, of the sports obviously over there they have a lot of, of indoor facilities with air conditioned and so on, which are like all very, very top notch. But you know, I heard Indonesia is a big market for padel development and obviously that’s the US Famous kind of pickleball padel, you know, padel. I think pickleball is ahead in the US But I wouldn’t be surprised that padel is going to catch up for two reasons. True global sports and you know, the same way like soccer took time to develop in the US it eventually did. So, I think in my opinion there’s, there’s room for a global sport and I think padel is the global force. So, I’m not, I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s going to take time. But I’m also involved in, in Playtomic as a, as a shareholder and, and I saw, you know, I see how they basically roll out that padel tech company, you know, that they have and the scalability and, and what they bring in terms of efficiency to, to the club management and club booking. And I think the US is definitely a big, big, big market for Playtomic. And you know, I told you before that I’d love to be involved in padel from both sides, both the, let’s say the, the social angle, the retail, you know, which is, you know, Playtomic is definitely one way to, to do that. And on the other hand at the competitive level, you know, Hexagon X10 padel, I mean those, those two are, are definitely, you know, more like the competition sports. Even though Hexagon and Playtomic now have a joint venture for the development of amateur leagues and I believe in that. I think it’s padel. One of the great tribute of padel is, is its strengths for, for social aspects, for corporate bonding. Lots of companies are using the sports as, as, yeah like corporate events and I think this is the way to go. So, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m not over bullish, but I think that there’s very few sports that are growing with the, with the numbers that we see in padel.

Minter Dial: Well, Louie, been great having you on this show. Good luck. I, I think that I hopefully by this time this comes out, we might even know whether Lorient has capped the League two and, and certainly looking forward to hearing about the adventures with padel X or padel 10 with Pierre and padel.

Loïc Fery: Yeah, we’re called the X padel team because you know, all the players were doing, you know, you know, the power of branding. So, you know, padel 10 padel the X in the Roman language is, is 10. So. And 10 is also the number of Pierre Gasly in the, in the Formula One grid. And 10 is also the. The key players on, on the football pitch. You know, they’re creative and so on. So, for us, that’s, that’s what 10 padel comes from. But I, I thank you very much, Minta, and it was a pleasure to be at Joy of Padel, and I look forward to meeting you on. On the Queen’s. On the padel. The padel course of Queen’s Club, maybe in London.

Minter Dial: Indeed. Or even tennis. I’m. I’m game for both Louis and Grand Plaisir. Thank you so much.

Loïc Fery: Thank you. Bye.