Indian Wrestling to receive central contract for the first time
Indian wrestlers will have a central contract system now that will be introduced for the first time at any Olympic games in the country. This system will grade the grapplers on their performance basis in various international events, although the wrestlers are yet to give their consent about it.
A meeting was held at the WFI, Wrestling Federation of India that saw grapplers like Sushil Kumar, Bajrang Punia, Yogeshwar Dutt, Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Phogat and Divya Kakran along with the WFI officials present at the National capital on Tuesday. The meeting discussed the development of the wrestling and wrestlers of the country.
The system would be benefitting over 150 wrestlers - junior, sub-junior, and under 23 age category apart from the elite ones, and will come into effect from November 15. The contract will be renewed every year.
The gradations discussed are 5 for the seniors and 4 for the juniors, which would include performances for World Championship, Olympics, Asian Games, CWG and Youth Olympics. While the financial legalities would be finalised by this weekend, the wrestlers are happy and have given consent to implement the system.Â
"We are moving closer to realizing our dream of making wrestling a
Along with this, another first for Wrestling would be a deal with the leading Sports broadcasting channel, which has been in the pipelines that would guarantee close to 100 days of live telecast of national and international matches staged in India from the new calendar, starting 2019.Â
The Sporty Solutionz CEO Ashish Chadha, whose company owns the United World Wrestling (UWW) television hosting right in India said, “ We always believed that wrestling as a sport has the potential to be transformed into a commercially viable product. Ensuring a permanent broadcaster now will guarantee the necessary visibility, which has been lacking in almost all Olympic disciplines till date.” Â
