If you are one of those, who wonders, why don’t we see a lot of foreigners take the mat in the Pro Kabaddi League matches, you’re not the only ones. Yes, there are Iranians who dominate among the other nations, we have a couple of Korean players here and there, but there is no real representation of other nationalities in the PKL, despite being bagged by various teams at the PKL auctions. And that is a major roadblock in kabaddi becoming a global sport.
One might argue, that the players, say from Poland, Bangladesh, Kenya, Nepal..are not good enough, but then if they don’t play with the best, they would not improve at all. InsideSport raised this point with International Kabaddi Federation chief Vinod Tiwari, and he also agreed to the same. In an exclusive interaction, he went on to say that the issue is being addressed and the scenario might start changing from this year onwards.
“Look, we have to make kabaddi a global sport. We have a few strong nations in Asia, but except from Iran, and maybe South Korea, no one can really challenge us. There is a lot of interest worldwide, but the PKL is one area, that needs to find a plan to make the players from other nations play more and more.
“I want to tell the fans, that we are in touch with PKL commissioner Anupam Goswami and the issue is being addressed. We will soon see a lot more foreign players take the mat for the teams,” Tiwari said.
Kabaddi has been a regular feature of the Asian Games since the 1990s, but barring the Pro Kabaddi there isn’t a substantial tournament that one can look forward to. Cut to 2024, Tiwari is almost certain, that the world will see a World Championship in the sport soon, somewhere in Feb-March 2025.
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“Soon, by early next year we will hold the World Championships in Kabaddi. It will take place in India only, but the city and venue is not decided as yet. We have spoken with all the nations interested, and will soon make the announcement. So that will be quite big for us. Hoping everything will fall into place.”
Kabaddi in Olympics?
Now, automatically, the next progression has to be the inclusion of kabaddi in Olympics. So asked when would we see kabaddi in Olympics, Tiwari made it clear, that it is a long battle that India needs to fight. “See while the nations who play kabaddi are certainly interested, there are some impending issues that we need to address internally. So it is a long road ahead for us,” he concluded.
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