The six-team franchisee-based event will be held in January-February next year with some of the leading male and female wrestlers of India and abroad participating in seven different weight groups in the freestyle category.
"(We) thought of the league last year but it had to be postponed keeping in mind the Olympics ahead. Wrestling is the number one Olympic sport and this is the time when we should take it to the next level," the commissioner and chairman of the governing body of the league, G S Mander, said.
The veteran administrator informed that six to eight teams, including seven male and as many women grapplers, will be involved in the completion that will see them fight in home and away matches. Of the seven members, the franchisee will be allowed to play two foreigners, he added. The former president of the WFI insisted that the Rs 11-million event will make wrestling a worthwhile career option.
"The league will help in making wrestling a worthwhile sport and a career option and will attract more youth. May be in the next Olympics we can win seven or eight medals," Mander said on the sidelines of a felicitation ceremony here today.
Mander assured that each team will have star players and added that the rules of the game will be modified a bit to attract more and more people to the venue.
"All six teams will have star players like Sushil (Kumar) and Yogeshwar (Dutt) which will make the event very exciting. The rules of the game will also be modified a bit to attract more people," he said, adding that it was a giant step taken by the federation to popularise the sport.
Mander said they had earlier called for interested franchisees through an advertisement and have succeeded in getting a good response. "Probably by the next week or so we will finalise the list of franchisees," he said.
The likely venues include Sonepat, Pune, New Delhi, Varanasi among others, informed a LSM official.
