KKSF now sets eyes to the UK for the 2025 Kabadii World Cup

Kenya will now shift focus to the United Kingdom (UK) for the 2025 Kabaddi World Cup tournament that has already been scheduled for March 27-23 after two failed attempts in 2024.

Speaking on Tuesday in Nairobi, Kenya Kabadii Sports Federation ( KKSF ) Competitions Manager Perpetual Muthoni said that her charges were ready and plans are underway for them to re-assemble on 5th January 2025 in Nairobi for both the men’s and women’s national teams that will participate in the rectangle style Kabadii during the global showdown event in the UK.

” We had earlier on selected a provisional squad back in May ready for the Cambodia World Cup in July, our men and women have been training, but we had to break the national team camps so that they can go back and focus on their clubs,” said Muthoni who added that despite missing out on the global events in 2024, her athletes are still eager and rearing to go.

The International Kabadii event that brings together 16 countries was initially scheduled for Cambodia in July 2024, but internal wrangles arising from the authorities and the host federation had to push the event to India where fate also did not favor the organizers, forcing them to abort it due to unavoidable circumstances.

With the event now scheduled for the UK after two botched attempts, World Kabadii has announced that it’s the first time having the International competition take place outside the Asian continent and now they have been boosted with a £500,000 grant from the Government’s Commonwealth Games Legacy Enhancement Fund following a joint bid by Wolverhampton Council and the sports global governing body.

“The Kabaddi World Cup 2025 is another great opportunity to put Walsall on the map. This is a huge global event so it’s great for Walsall and the West Midlands to be able to host it, bringing the sport to the UK, ”
Walsall Council associate leader Councillor Adrian Andrew said adding that the UK will be hosting the World Cup from Walsall, Wolverhampton, Coventry and Birmingham, but while in Walsall, the event will be at the Wolverhampton University’s Walsall Campus in Gorway Road and Highgate where it will be hosted on day five of the tagging tournament.

The already confirmed countries for the UK tourney in March 2025 are hosts England while others are Scotland, Italy and Poland who will represent Europe with Tanzania, Kenya, Cameroon and Egypt coming from Africa as India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and China will represent Asia while the Pan America will only have the USA as their sole representative.