DUBAI: When the Argentina kabaddi team, wearing the Albiceleste jersey, was travelling eastwards for Kabaddi Masters Dubai, they were routinely mistaken for their more famous football counterparts.
“A lot of them asked if we are going to the World Cup in Russia,” says Gabriel Sacchi. “We had to tell them that we are going for kabaddi. If they didn’t know about the sport before, they do now. We showed them a lot of videos.” The six-nation tournament is also being broadcast live in Argentina.
Sacchi is a teacher by profession and they are spreading the word about the game wherever they go. The South American country was introduced to the game by Ricardo Acuna, president of Commission of Alternative Sport. He also serves as their coach, who happened to watch a game of kabaddi by Indian expats in Canada in 1999. Acuna has been working towards building a kabaddi base in the football-mad nation, and is slowly getting results despite difficulties.
“We have only one mat in our country,” says Acuna, who was also the team’s coach at the 2016 Kabaddi World Cup. “Even that is not an official mat. It’s quite thin. We have 120 men and 50 women, all of whom have to play on that.”
That only mat is in La Plata. When teams meet for a tournament, there are clubs that travel more than 300kms for it. Argentina has also established a kabaddi league, where six men’s teams and four women’s teams compete once in a month, spanning five months. The clubs practice on a weekly basis in their own cities, at either parks or beaches.
To make sure that they have some competition close by, Acuna has also tried to take the game to countries like Mexico, Chile and Peru. “We will have an official kabaddi clinic in Brazil in October,” he says, adding that an official mat has been promised by International Kabaddi federation after this tournament in Dubai.
Kenya joins the fray
In Africa, the indigenous sport has found an ally in Kenya. Physically strong and naturally athletic, Kenyans have instantly taken a liking to the sport, learning about it and its heroes from YouTube. “Kenya is a sporting nation and our main activity is athletics,”says Hassan Noor Hassan from the nation’s sports ministry, on the sidelines of Kabaddi Masters Dubai. “Because of the sport’s simplicity and accessibility of facilities, we think it’s going to be very popular.”
Kenya has introduced kabaddi in schools and colleges, and has role models in players like captain David Mosambayi, who also turns out in Pro Kabaddi League. They are now developing tournaments in Africa — especially East Africa — and recently played one in Mauritius.
“Next plan is to introduce Kabaddi All African Games, so that we have continental games and another continent playing it,” says coach Laventa Oguta, who is also president of the Kenyan Kabaddi Association.