Sports News | First global women’s kabaddi league to start in September

New Delhi [India]August 11 (ANI): With an aim to promote Kabaddi at the global level, the first Global Women's Kabaddi League is scheduled to be held in September 2024.

The league will bring together athletes from over 15 nations when the Global Pravasi Women's Kabaddi League (GPKL), the first tournament of its kind, kicks off.

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The Global Pravasi Women's Kabaddi League (GPKL) aims to take kabaddi to the international stage. This is an important step towards the inclusion of kabaddi in the Olympic Games and supports India's bid to host this landmark event in 2036.

Organised by the Holistic International Pravasi Sports Association (HIPSA) in collaboration with World Kabaddi, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was recently signed between HIPSA and the Government of Haryana. The league is also set to start in Haryana to promote and develop women's kabaddi globally.

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The Global Pravasi Women's Kabaddi League has teams from over 15 countries participating. Athletes from a variety of countries including England, Poland, Argentina, Canada and Italy have expressed their desire to play in the league.

Speaking about the growing popularity of the sport and the upcoming league, HIPSA President Kanthi D Suresh said, according to a press release from GPKL, “This was long overdue and now that the Indian government is adamant about bidding to host the Olympics, it would be heartbreaking if our homegrown sport did not participate!”

Kabaddi is the oldest sport and has been played on the Indian subcontinent since time immemorial. It was included as a full sport in the Asian Games in 1990 and the women's competition was introduced in 2010. The new league not only aims to celebrate this rich heritage but also to inspire a new generation of women to take up the sport.

Former Indian Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju has also expressed his support for the inclusion of Kabaddi in the Olympics. With India aiming to host the 2036 Olympics, the inclusion of Kabaddi in the Olympics would just be the icing on the cake.

“The award of hosting rights for the Olympic Games is done by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) through a detailed, publicly accessible host selection process. The IOC has its own body, the Future Host Commission (FHC), to deal with this issue. The Indian Olympic Association (IOA), the NOC for India, has initiated the dialogue process with the FHC,” Union Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports Dr Mansukh Mandaviya said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha in July 2024.

“The International Olympic Committee (IOC) decides on the inclusion of a sport in the Olympic Games. Among other things, the IOC has stipulated that a sport must be governed by an international federation that undertakes to comply with the rules of the Olympic Charter. It must also be practiced worldwide and meet various criteria,” he added.

Therefore, the Global Pravasi Women's Kabaddi League represents the first step towards realising the country's ambitions, including the aspiration to host the 2036 Olympics and include kabaddi as an official Olympic sport. The schedule for the Global Pravasi Women's Kabaddi League (GKPL) will be announced in due course. (ANI)

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