Sétois Guillaume Ortis, coach of the Blues tennis ball in Paris: “We are close to the Olympic Games, it’s a dream”

Guillaume Ortis entraîne l’équipe de France de futnet depuis 2012 DR – DR

On July 27 and 28, the best French futnet players will perform in Paris in the largest fan zone of the Olympic Games. Guillaume Ortis from Sète, the coach of the national team, will be there and hopes to see his discipline among the Olympic sports one day.

Why organize two matches at Club France in Paris ?

To touch the Olympic Games with your fingertips. Sometimes, people ask us if we're going to the Olympics. It's nice, but to become an Olympic sport, it's more complicated than that. We can dream, why not in 20 years.We're expecting thousands of people at Club France, the biggest fan zone of the Olympics. Maybe some will discover it and want to create clubs. We're constantly in communication, so it's an opportunity. And above all, even if it's not the Olympic Games, we are very close to the Olympic Games, so it makes us dream a little.

Over the years, French futnet has grown…

It has been integrated into the French Football Federation since 2022. It's great in terms of development. It's the first federation to take futnet under its wing. On the world stage, we're doing pretty well. We're world champions in doubles in 2022 for the first time, we're the third nation in the world in triples, and we're the sixth nation in singles.

At the national level, it's going up. Every year, there are more and more licensees. The best club this year is Nantes. Before, it was Sète. The cool thing is that many clubs are developing.

What is the history of this sport??

It was born in 1922 in Prague by volleyball players. Then, footballers used the practice to improve technique. In France, it was in the 1950s, with Albert Batteux, the French football coach, who applied it to his players like Raymond Kopa.

In Sète, it was a summer sport in the 1990s. When I was younger, we played on the beach. With social networks, we saw that it was played all over the world, in Eastern countries, in South Korea or in Latin America. But with different rules. We harmonised everything and created this sport in its own right.

In which country is it most developed ?

Futnet is very well-known in the Czech Republic. If you have a 10-year-old boy who wants to do it, there is bound to be a club in a village. It is also on television, that is an important detail. We can imagine in a few years in France some very spectacular matches on TV. It is complicated at the moment because people do not know about it, but it is a telegenic sport. I am convinced that it will interest people, but we have to take it step by step.

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