Summer padel festival comes to Braehead Shopping Centre

The hottest sport in the world is coming to Renfrewshire this summer thanks to global sports brand Decathlon and UK-based padel operator Soul Padel.

The duo are bringing padel to the heart of Glasgow with a first ‘summer padel festival’ at Decathlon’s Braehead store.

Grab a racket and discover why more than 100,000 people play the sport in the UK, which the fastest growing sport across the world with more than 25 million players.

The collaboration between Soul Padel and Decathlon will see two pop-up padel courts open to the public from Monday 3rd June until Wednesday 31st August.

The summer festival will feature a range of activities and coaching clinics as Soul Padel aims to promote this fun sport to local communities and fitness enthusiasts.

Padel, which is described as a cross between tennis and squash, is easy to pick-up enabling anyone to grab a racket and start playing in no time.

The padel festival will be supported by Decathlon’s in-house padel brand, Kuikma, and the festival will showcase products catering to beginners through to professional athletes, with equipment available for purchase or rent for those who want to ‘try before they buy’.

Special events will include introductory padel clinics led by professional coaches, children’s sessions during the school holidays and “women-only” sessions.

Soul Padel founder and CEO Mark Hewlett said: “This is an incredible opportunity to bring padel to Glasgow and we are really pleased to be taking padel into the heart of the city for the first time.

“Decathlon is an internationally respected sports brand, and we are immensely proud to be partnering with them in the months ahead.

Photo: Mark Hewlett – CEO & co-founder Soul Padel
Photo Credit: Soul Padel

“Our aim across these three months is to create a summer festival of padel that will introduce more people to this incredibly fun sport and encourage them to become fellow padel fanatics. We also have a lot of activities in the pipeline, which we will share once they are finalised.”

As 2024 marks Decathlon’s 25th anniversary in the UK, this new partnership with Soul Padel will proudly see Decathlon continue to create a legacy by inspiring people through the wonders of sport.

Federico Fraguela, UK commercial leader – Running & Rackets Sports, said: “At Decathlon, we’re passionate about making sports accessible to all. Partnering with Soul Padel allows us to extend our reach and introduce padel to new audiences. With our shared values of community and inclusivity, we’re excited to support these events and help more people feel ready to play this summer.”

Installation of the courts will start imminently. PADEL1969 founder and CEO Atte Suominen added: “We are looking forward to this exciting new chapter for padel. We are proud to be providing our one court for life by Padelo1969 – a combination of quality and high performance premium padel courts.

“The summer padel pop-ups with Soul Padel and Decathlon align with our commitment of spreading the ‘Joy of Padel’.”

Soul Padel is expecting the festival to be extremely popular and is inviting businesses to be part of this exciting initiative.

It has a range of sponsorship opportunities, including presenting partnerships, activation partnerships, supporting sponsorships, court sponsorships and sampling. For more information on the about the opportunities, contact Aimee Lawson via email – aimee@eutopia.agency