There's a moment every growing sports federation hits, when the systems that once "did fine" suddenly stopped working altogether because they just weren't scalable enough, or at all. Facing a rapid rise in padel's popularity, the Croatian padel federation came across that same challenge as they hit the point where they had obviously outgrown everything they were using.  

After exploring more than 10 different options, the federation's president, Tomislav Margeta, and its COO, Matej Majstorovic, reached out to Tournated back in September of 2025. Fast forward a couple of months, a partnership was struck, and on January 1, 2026, everything was officially up and running for the Croatian leading padel organization. 

Building Operational Discipline at Scale

"Looking back now, three months into using Tournated, or as we white-labelled it - HPS Play Portal - the easiest way to describe the experience is simple: there's a learning curve, but it's worth it," Matej commented.

"The first few weeks weren't effortless," Tomislav recalled. 

"Moving from a patchwork of DIY tools into a centralized system forces you to rethink how you operate," added Matej. “You can't just replicate old habits inside a new platform. You have to adjust, sometimes even unlearn," he continued.  

Once things started clicking, the difference became obvious to anyone who spent more than 15 minutes using it, especially on the player's side. 

"Before, everything was reactive, so if something broke, we fixed it. If data didn't match, we chased it down," Matej said.   

Now, as they say, everything lives in one place: players, clubs, tournaments, rankings, and it's structured, connected, and consistent. It's hard to overstate what that means to a federation; they were moving from improvising to actually operating.

Unlocking Revenue and Simplifying Federation Management

Matej pointed out that revenue existed, but it wasn't centralized across different channels. They didn't have a clean way to track how participation translated into income, or where opportunities were being missed.  

"We can now see what's happening across the board, and more importantly, it opens the door to thinking differently. Not just about collecting revenue, but about actively building it," Matej explained.  

This way, from a management perspective, things became simpler. Not because there's less going on, but because everything is finally connected - managing events, players, referees, clubs, coaches, licenses, and so on - the point being that it's no longer scattered across tools and conversations.  

What also stands out is how this impacts everyone else in the ecosystem. Clubs and organizers now have space to operate on their own, without constantly depending on the federation for every small update. That balance of "self-governance" is something they knew would help them a lot operationally. 

Why White-Label Was a Non-Negotiable

This platform flexibility spilled into marketing and sponsor opportunities as they now have a new digital space, with new placements and clear ways to integrate partners into events and the broader ecosystem.  

"It becomes easier to explain, easier to package, and ultimately, easier to sell," Matej explained. Choosing a white-label solution played a big role in making this possible, and something they declared as a must-have in their search for the ultimate platform. "Building something from scratch would have taken too long, cost too much, and ultimately distracted us from what actually matters - growing the sport."

Matej continued, "With Tournated, we got speed, flexibility, and control over how the federation is presented, branding, and the overall feel, without the overhead of building everything ourselves. And maybe the most important part, especially in those first three months, it didn't feel like we were doing this alone." 

Early-stage adoption naturally comes with a learning curve, especially when transitioning from fragmented tools to a centralized, scalable system. 

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Tournated, launched in 2024 with foundations dating back to 2019, has rapidly evolved into a multi-sport platform shaped by real-world use cases and close collaboration with leading sports organizations. 

Nikita Ribakovs commented, “The Croatian Padel Federation is one of our most engaged and demanding partners - in the best possible way. They continuously challenge the platform, and their feedback plays a key role in how we scale and improve.” 

“In many ways, they’ve become our partners in development - even jokingly our QA team. This level of involvement is incredibly valuable, as it allows us to test and refine advanced features in real conditions,” he added. 

Together, Tournated and the Croatian Padel Federation are actively working on advanced league management and preparing to launch a new generation of features designed to support and scale modern sports organizations. 

Matej continued, "What made the difference is that Tournated was there through it, and they still are. We made it a win-win situation with different domain experts coming together, an ecosystem of quality feedback and user insights, and fast turnaround development, closing a loop.

In the end, this wasn't just a platform change for us, it was an operational upgrade. And for a federation that's growing as fast as padel is in Croatia, that upgrade wasn't optional, it was necessary," he concluded.