The World Kabbadi Cup will be held in October at The Arena Stadium in Ahmedabad. India will be competing with 11 other countries which include the USA, the UK, Bangladesh, Japan, Argentina, Kenya, Poland, Iran, and Thailand.
The event will help to showcase the game of Kabbadi internationally and contribute to gain the much needed and deserved recognition for this sport which is very popular in the Indian Subcontinent. These views were expressed by the president of the International Kabaddi Federation, Janardan Singh Gehlot.
The event will kick off on October 7, and will be a fortnight-long affair. The 12 teams will be divided into two pools of six and the preliminaries will be in a round-robin league format and will be followed by the semi-finals and the final on October 22. Kabbadi has taken large leaps over the past few years, and the sport has been in the international limelight, and it has a chance to feature in the Olympics after the successful organization of the 2016 Kabaddi World Cup.
Check out the complete fixtures/ time and date here.
Olympic Inclusion
The process to get the sport into the Olympics has been on for a long time, and this was confirmed by Mr. Singh at the launch of the logo and the schedule for the forthcoming World Cup. The game has been known in international circles for a long time.
However, the game has not been able to project itself on a large scale as it will be happening now. Authorities have already forwarded a request to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), seeking their permissions. It will be an agonizing wait before the results of their endeavor will be visible.
The flagging fortunes of the game have been turned round by the Pro Kabbadi League which has led to a massive input of funds thanks to the initiative by Star Sports to make the sport economically viable. The inclusion of the sport in the Olympic will be a logical conclusion to this endeavor.