Pickleball is this close to becoming an Olympic sport, but a lot of work is still ahead.

The Global Pickleball Federation (GPF) and the Unified World Pickleball Federation (UWPF) have created a taskforce called the "Unification Committee" to establish a single governing entity dedicated to the governance and global expansion of pickleball.

For an in-depth look at how we got here, please read my article from five months ago, outlining a merger between the WPF and the International Federation of Pickleball (IFP):

For a CliffsNotes version, here you go:

2010 - The International Federation of Pickleball (IFP) was founded as the first governing body in pickleball. The IFP later became defunct due to financial concerns.
2018 - Seymour Rifkind starts the WPF, following his earlier creation of the International Pickleball Teaching Professional Association (IPTPA)
April 2023 - The IFP is brought back to life as the IPF
November 2023 - The GPF was founded when the United States, Canada, Australia, among other countries, withdrew from the IPF
June 2025 - The IPF/WPF agreed to a merger and to vote on a new Board of Directors (article mentioned above)
August 30, 2025 - The newly elected UWPF Board of Directors were announced
September 2, 2025 - GPF President, Javier Regalado, sent the newly seated Board of Directors a letter via email inviting collaboration

The Dink was able to obtain this letter, and found the following quotes noteworthy:

"Our board believes there has never been a better moment in pickleball’s history for a reset, through the merger of UWPF and GPF. We all recognize the need for unification through one global governing body, and the confidence that would provide the pickleball world and the IOC."

- Javier Regalado, President of the GPF to the newly seated UWPF Board of Directors, September 2, 2025

Almost immediately, the two sides began talks, and decided to create a taskforce with the mission of moving forward with unification.

_{Want to advertise with us?}

If your company is interested in reaching an audience of active pickleballers, you may want to give us a shout.

The Unification Committee

Seven members make up the taskforce working toward the unification of the GPF and the UWPF:

Dr. Kelvin Yii - UWPF - Board Member
Arvind Prabhoo - UWPF - Past IPF President
Rika Riordan - UWPF - Board Member
Seymour Rifkind - UWPF - Past WPF President
Chandler Carney - GPF - Board Member
Ruth Rosenquist - GPF - Board Member
Jen Ramamurthy - GPF - Secretary General

The task force met on November 8th, 2025, posting a press release on Monday, November 17th:

The last paragraph of the unified press release from both GPF and UWPF, signed by Jen Ramamurthy and Miguel Montano Freire

I was able to speak to Jen Ramamurthy in an interview (Thank you, Jen, for getting up at 7am Aussie time to speak with me). She was very positive and hopeful this unification is headed in the right direction, but she did add that there is a lot of work to be done still.

"I think it is a realistic aspirational goal for the GPF and UWPF to complete a unification by July of 2026."

- Jen Ramamurthy, Secretary General of the GPF

What Does This Really Mean for the Olympics?

In August 2025, I went on Paul Olson's SelkirkTV podcast, and we spoke about this subject. The title of the episode was "How Pickleball Can Become an Olympic Sport":

In this discussion, we talked at length about the need for one global governing body. And if you have read this far into the article, you are pretty dedicated to pickleball, so I highly recommend watching the full episode above.

Thanks to Alex E. Weaver, Digital Content Manager at The Dink, we were able to obtain some clarification from the International Olympic Committee (IOC):

Only International Federations (IFs) officially recognised by the IOC are eligible for inclusion either in the initial sports programme or as additional sports proposed by an Organising Committee (OCOG) for their edition of the Olympic Games.

-The International Olympic Committee Media Relations Team

In looking through the website provided by the IOC, pickleball does not yet have a unified governing body:

What's Next

As the title of this article states, this is a huge step in the right direction for the governance of global pickleball. If the merger is able to take place by July 2026, like Ramamurthy predicts, there is a very real chance for the newly formed Federation (name TBD), to be recognized as THE governing body of pickleball.

Once that takes place, it is only a matter of time before pickleball is in the Olympics.