Former Ligue 1 stars turn Paris padel final into fierce showdown

Steed Malbranque and Sylvain Wiltord, the Lyon pair, beat Robert Pirès and Grégory Sertic, the Marseille pair, in a tense final of the 4PADEL Football Cup beneath the Eiffel Tower. Held on the 4PADEL Gustave court in Paris’s 7th arrondissement, the night turned former Ligue 1 names into a real competition, not a parade of nostalgia.

The path to the title was just as demanding. Malbranque and Wiltord had to survive Eric Cubilier and Rémy Riou in a semi-final that went to a tie-break, while Pirès and Sertic beat Yacine Abdessadki and Kevin Gameiro in another close contest to reach the final. The format started with group play and then tightened into knockout rounds, and the longer the evening went on, the more the intensity rose.

The tournament was created by Frédéric Piquionne with 4PADEL and was staged in phases across France before the Paris finale. That matters because this was built like a circuit, not a one-off celebrity hit: Padel Magazine said the season brought together more than 200 former professional players, while a related 4PADEL stream described 60 former Ligue 1 players in 30 pairs representing the cities where they played during their careers.

The setting carried its own message. 4PADEL Gustave is a single outdoor padel court on Quai du Port de Suffren, open to the public during the summer season, and the site is part of the brand’s effort to put padel in one of Paris’s most visible locations. 4PADEL says padel in France has more than 600,000 practitioners and nearly 100,000 licensed players, and it works with Babolat to help develop the sport. With the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop and former footballers competing for something more than a photo opportunity, the final showed how 4PADEL uses recognizable names, high-profile venues and event culture to turn football fans into padel fans.