Organisation of the Sport

Organisation of Petanque 

The international governing body for petanque world wide is the Fédération Internationale de Pétanque et Jeu Provençal (FIPJP).   There is also the International Centre for the Teaching of Petanque, a training arm of FIPJP and the World Confederation of Boules Sports, which includes petanque, lawn bowls and bocce.

Under FIPJP's jurisdiction there are five continental confederations; The African, Asian, European, Oceania and Pan-American Confederations.   Australia belongs to the Oceania Confederation.

Confederations are made up of multiple national federations which in Australia is Petanque Federation Australia.   PFA is made up of five State Leagues and 59 clubs throughout the country.

National and International Competitions

The FIPJP World Championships take place every two years.  Men's championships are held in even-numbered years, while women's and youth championships are held in odd-numbered years. In 2015 FIPJP introduced a new world championship, men's and women's singles, and that has since expanded to include men's and women's doubles and mixed doubles. Perhaps the best-known international championship is the Mondial la Marseillaise de Pétanque, which takes place every year in Marseille, France, with more than 16,000 participants and more than 200,000 spectators.

Petanque is not currently an Olympic sport, although the Confédération Mondiale des Sports de Boules — which was created in 1985 by several international boules organizations specifically for this purpose and has been lobbying the Olympic Committee to make it part of the Summer Olympics.  In 2015 they made a renewed campaign to get Boule Sports included in the Olympics in time for the 2024 games.  This was unsuccessful.

The universal appeal of petanque is not only geographical but is reflected in the number of countries that have won medals in various world championships. This increases from year to year, demonstrating the continued development of petanque in many countries and shows a qualitative increase in the level of national teams.  At this point, 67 countries have won medals in at least one world championship.