Kabaddi World Cup

Whose World Cup?

Kabaddi is the one sport on this site where the question "who is the world champion?" has no single answer, and the honest account is the useful one. Two rival international bodies each run a Kabaddi World Cup, and a third, entirely separate code has its own.^[1] [2]

Recent editions, labelled by the body that staged them.

The two rival bodies

The International Kabaddi Federation, founded in 2004 and based in Jaipur with around 33 members, is the body the Olympic Council of Asia recognises; it and the Asian Kabaddi Federation govern kabaddi at the Asian Games, where it has been a medal sport since 1990. It runs the standard-style, indoor World Cup — three men's editions, in 2004, 2007 and 2016, all held in India and all won by India with Iran runner-up each time — and a women's World Cup, whose second edition at Dhaka in November 2025 was the first Kabaddi World Cup of either sex staged outside India.^[1] [3]

World Kabaddi, formed in 2018 and claiming 56 national members across five continental bodies, runs its own World Cup — Melaka in 2019 and the West Midlands in March 2025, where India won both the men's and women's titles and England were runners-up in both. It is the larger body by membership and the more active outside Asia.^[2] [4]

The dispute itself

While the 2025 event was being played the IKF stated that it was not authorised and that its outcomes would not be recognised by the Olympic Council of Asia, the Asian Kabaddi Federation or the Asian Games. World Kabaddi responded by threatening legal action over the characterisation, citing the Court of Arbitration for Sport's position in the surfing governance dispute that more than one governing body for a sport can coexist, and pointing to a Supreme Court of India direction of February 2025 ordering an investigative mechanism into the IKF's affairs. Neither body holds IOC recognition.^[2] [4]

Circle kabaddi, and the Pro Kabaddi League

Two further things are frequently confused with the above. Circle-style kabaddi is a different code played on a circular field, and its own World Cup — editions from 2010 to 2016, run largely by the Government of Punjab and won by India, plus a Lahore edition in 2020 won by Pakistan — is not the standard-style title. And the Pro Kabaddi League is neither: it is a domestic Indian franchise league launched in 2014 by Mashal Sports on the IPL model, now twelve teams built through a player auction, whose 2025 season ended with Dabang Delhi beating Puneri Paltan 31–28.^[3] [4]