The primary reason for the termination notice, it is learnt, has been defaulting on players' salaries from Haryana Hammers and Uttar Pradesh Warriors for over four months.
At a time when the Indian wrestling community is celebrating the historic feat of two Indian women wrestlers – Vinesh Phogat and Sakshi Malik – qualifying for the Olympics for the first time, the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) has decided to part ways with the one-season-old Pro Wrestling League (PWL).
According to reliable WFI sources, the notice of termination to ProSportify, a company with diversified interests in sports and franchise-based leagues in India, over delay in payment of salaries to top Indian and international grapplers has already been served on April 16.
Even during the conduct of the league from December 10 to 27, 2015, there were several organisational issues that didn't please WFI. However, the primary reason for the termination notice, it is learnt, has been defaulting on players' salaries from Haryana Hammers and Uttar Pradesh Warriors for over four months. Not just this, ProSportify was even unable to pay the 'royalty' to WFI for lending its name to the league.
This development comes at a point when, for the first time, India will be represented in all three formats – men's freestyle, female wrestling and Greco Roman – at the upcoming Rio Games. At 2012 London Olympics, Geeta Phogat was the lone Indian female grappler in the fray.
According to WFI, media professional Kartikeya Sharma, promoter of PWL, was issued several reminders to make payments to the grapplers and explain the reasons behind poor organisational and venue management woes during the first season.
It is learnt that it was only after WFI president and BJP parliamentarian Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh directly got involved into the matter that ProSportify released the payment to some of the international wrestlers. WFI had listed various reasons to terminate PWL, such as default on part of players' salaries, non-payment of royalty to the federation, delay in payment to vendors and default on Rs 2 crore prize-money to winners Revanta Mumbai Garuda. However, what irked WFI most was that ProSportify tinkered with rules during the latter half of PWL in order to benefit their own promoted Haryana franchisee.
"The No. 1 wrestler always takes on No. 4 while No. 2 to play against No. 3. But what was done to benefit Haryana team was that No. 1 was pitted against No. 2 and No. 3 against No. 4. That was not just against the rules but also offended most of the other teams as well as the WFI," a top WFI official told dna.
PWL chairman GS Mander and Sharan Singh decided to issue a 90-day notice period to ProSportify to explain their side of the story before going ahead with the termination of contract. "WFI is only following a professional approach by giving ProSportify time to respond to the notice. ProSportify officials had been trying hard to fix up a meeting with senior WFI officials, we don't want to hold any talks with them after such a horrible experience during the first season. The chapter is closed from our end. We just want them to honour their commitment and make the payment to wrestlers," the WFI official said.
It is also learnt that all franchise owners expressed their unhappiness with ProSportify during their meeting with WFI recently. Calls and text messages to Sunil Kalra, PWL CEO, did not elicit any response.
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