A historic breakthrough in Italy: for the first time in history, tennis surpasses football to become the sport with the most registered players in the country. The Football federation has now 1.123.054 members, less than the Tennis federation who now has 1.162.477 members
posted by u/PianoJealous307 · 2026-10-28 14:13 UTC
(Link/image post, original: https://www.rainews.it/articoli/2026/10/il-sorpasso-storico-il-tennis-supera-il-calcio-e-diventa-lo-sport-con-piu-tesserati-in-italia-eb89c6f2-59d3-4074-abb9-5b63d8d88dde.html）
## Top comments
1. u/PianoJealous307 · 2026-10-28 14:13 UTC
Sinner to the Italian tennis federation:
2. u/Gattamelat4 · 2026-10-28 14:36 UTC
Tennis in Italy is experiencing an incredible boom in popularity, but these numbers are slightly misleading.
There are many organizations other than the FIGC (italian football federation) that organize amateur football leagues and have hundreds of thousands of registered members. Furthermore, if I'm not mistaken, the FIT figures include both padel players and thousands of children participating in a big tennis promotion program in schools.
3. u/Ld511 · 2026-10-28 15:14 UTC
And realistically tennis is a sport thats significantly harder to randomly play
4. u/f1223214 · 2026-10-28 15:40 UTC
What do you mean exactly by "randomly play" ? Because if we're talking about playing with real racquet and real court, then, probably yes. But so is football. You don't have a football field near your home do you ? While for tennis, you can adapt by playing badminton, beach tennis, ping-pong, whatever and you only need 2 people for it and you can play it on your garden or your garage or something. It's not like it's particularly "harder" to play tennis.
5. u/comunistpotato17 · 2026-10-28 15:41 UTC
You can literally play football with a plastic bottle in the middle of a street
6. u/Kulturkan · 2026-10-28 15:21 UTC
Many tennis clubs offer a FITP membership in conjunction with sports insurance. Furthermore, padel is replacing five-a-side football as the sport of choice for those in their thirties and forties.
But it's undeniable that football is no longer the dominant sport it was years ago, much to the blame of its federation.
Edit: I added something to the comment.
7. u/mimiclarinette · 2026-10-28 15:02 UTC
Sara Errani ´s impact is crazy
8. u/Bazinger-D · 2026-10-28 14:15 UTC
Musetti is so handsome!
https://giphy.com/gifs/KyMpfbLgKkFRTWlQhu
9. u/gamelover99 · 2026-10-28 14:18 UTC
Matteo’s girlfriend agrees
10. u/Devid0 · 2026-10-28 14:19 UTC
Too soon
11. u/Bazinger-D · 2026-10-28 14:29 UTC
https://giphy.com/gifs/hp8qQLBUWGI87DOs2n
12. u/Paroketh92 · 2026-10-28 15:51 UTC
Remove all the amateur padel players or add all the amateur football (even with 5 a side, 7 a side and 8 a side) and we'll see the real numbers.
13. u/Eomer444 · 2026-10-28 15:22 UTC
Tennis AND padel combined against only FIGC (which does not include all amateur level football).
14. u/NarrowBoysenberry · 2026-10-28 15:01 UTC
Doesn't this include padel?
15. u/Illustrious_Land699 · 2026-10-28 15:52 UTC
It must be said that Binaghi had falsified the data by counting almost 700,000 children who did a project of a few hours at school.
link
Binaghi:"Nel 2025 il progetto ‘Racchette in Classe’ ha raggiunto 690.232 studenti, e il nostro obiettivo è arrivare a un milione entro il 2026."
"In 2025, the 'Rackets in the Classroom' project reached 690,232 students, and our goal is to reach one million by 2026."
To participate in this project they enrolled them in the Tennis Federation to inflate the numbers but if you go to Italy the reality is quite obvious, there are hundreds and hundreds of children enrolled in football schools and few in tennis schools (also because of prices and being a solitary sport)
16. u/Any_Explanation3006 · 2026-10-28 16:26 UTC
That's not surprising at all. Look at the state of Italian football. Failed to qualify for 3 consecutive World Cups, their league quality has fallen off a cliff. The younger generations have a Sinner to look up to but no solid footballers.
17. u/g_spaitz · 2026-10-28 16:29 UTC
3 years ago me and my 3 doubles partners could decide on a Tuesday afternoon if we wanted to play in the evening.
Now we can't book a court 2 months earlier.
18. u/MotherAd1865 · 2026-10-28 14:25 UTC
Registered players doesn't mean much... In Canada, the most played youth sport is football/soccer. We are still by far a hockey loving country
19. u/CFDsForFun · 2026-10-28 14:31 UTC
I would imagine it means a lot for the future when these registered players are older and have time and money to commit to playing/watching a sport or two. Will see how it plays out I guess