Sakshi Malik, Geeta Phogat announce new wrestling league; federation distances from new league

Hyderabad: Indian wrestlers Sakshi Malik and Geeta Phogat announced the advent of a new wrestling league – Wrestling Champions Super League (WCSL) – on Monday.

Sakshi Malik took to social media to announce the formation of the new league. “The WCSL, a world class international league, will skill & strengthen our wrestlers to dominate the sport globally by taking on the world’s best in a hyper competitive, expertly supervised environment with best-in-class support systems in place,” Sakshi posted on X, formerly Twitter.

The versatile former Indian wrestler also announced that Paris Olympics 2024 bronze medalist Aman Sehrawat will also join hands with them and play in the Wrestling Champions Super League. “We are delighted that Aman (Sehrawat) shares our vision and is joining us on this journey,” Sakshi added.

Sehrawat said the league is aimed at helping the Indian wrestling community more and that’s the reason why he wanted to be a part of such a league. “This league is a very commendable initiative which will help Indian wrestling greatly and therefore I want to be a part of it and support it fully,” Sehrawat said.

Sakshi added that they are looking forward to working together with the young star from the Indian wrestling stable. “We look forward to working closely with this bright young star of Indian wrestling,“ the 32-year-old Sakshi added.

This will be the second wrestling league in India. The Pro Wrestling League, jointly owned and held by ProSportify and the Wrestling Federation of India, was last held in 2019 after starting the league in 2015.

Just as the announcement came, the Wrestling Federation of India was quick to distance themselves from the league. The WFI president Sanjay Singh said compared the league to people organising dangals and affirmed that the federation had no role to play in the league and added that the federation doesn’t support such leagues to be held.