Indian wrestlers to get central contacts like cricketers

New Delhi: In India wrestling is all set to get a huge face-lift. A central contract system will be introduced for the wrestlers, similar to cricket, where the progression of grapplers will be done based on their performances at various international events. 

In another first for wrestling, a broadcast deal with a leading sports channel is yet to get finalized, which would assure close to 100 days of live telecast of national and international matches played in India from the beginning of the year 2019.  

The contracts are said to come into effect from 15th of November. Around 150 wrestlers will be benefited, including junior, sub-junior and U-23 age category wrestlers, other than the elite players. The youngest wrestlers to come into the fold are the U- 15 category. The contracts will be evaluated every year. 

The gradation for seniors and junior players will be done in five and four segments respectively. It will consider medals won at the Olympics, World Championships, Asian Games, CWG and Youth Olympics. By this weekend the financial modalities will be finalized. 

On Tuesday a meeting was held was held at the Wrestling Federation of India’s (WFI) headquarters in the national capital in this regard. It was attended by the officials of WFI and its commercial partner Sporty Solutionz officials, and 15 grapplers, including, Sushil Kumar, Bajrang, Yogeshwar Dutt, Sakshi Malik, Vinesh Phogat and Divya Kakran. The meeting revolved around charting out the road to development and securing wrestlers’ future.  

The WFI has been holding informal discussions with its players over the issue of central contracts. On Tuesday the wrestlers gave their approval to implement the system on Tuesday. 

WFI president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh said: “We are moving closer to realizing our dream of making wrestling a self-sufficient commercial sport where players are financially secure, including the juniors. Our aim is to provide them with the best of training and facilities. ” 

Sporty Solutionz CEO Ashish Chadha, whose company owns the United World Wrestling’s (UWW) television hosting rights in India, said both the WFI and his establishment are trying to bring more international events to the country to increase the game’s visibility. 

“We always trusted 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,” Chadha told.