Goodbye 2009. Welcome 2010!

It was the best of the times and it was the worst of times. That somehow sums up what 2009 was for the Kabaddi Association of Kuala Lumpur (KAKL).

It was indeed an eventful year with the KAKL going full steam in developing the sport in the city. Many landmarks were set over the last 12 months. The recognition of the second place in the Best Sports Association category for the KAKL by the Federal Territory Sports Department at the Mass Sports Sports Award was the highlight of the associations endeavour.

The initiation of the Premier League Kabaddi was a gamble that KAKL took and it has paid its dividends in unearthing many young players. The PLK also had its fair share of disappointment with some teams dropping out even before the season was over.

This was only an indication that the sport is still at its infancy and the march towards a more professional set-up is strewn with many hurdles and obstacles.

KAKL also organised a number other tournaments with the assistance of the Rakan Muda and City Hall. The Arasai-Kings of Kabaddi was another milestone, although, it too bared the ugly truth that we need to put discipline at the top of any programme.

KAKL also assisted various other groups including the Selangor Tamil Bell Youth CLub and the Malacca Multimedia University with their tournaments.

All of these competitions would have been even more exciting had we had better cooperation from the Kabaddi Association of Malaysia (KAM).

The KAKL was also at the forefont in initiating the inclusion of kabaddi in the Traditional Sports Carnival. KAKL officials not only fought for the inclusion but also travelled the country to conduct kabaddi introductory course for the Ministry of Sports Malaysia.

Unfortunately, KL were denied the right to play at the finals of the carnival by some unscrupulous manipulation by some officials.

With the KAKL being denied their rights of membership by the KAM, the KAKL lodged complaints with both the Olympic Council of Malaysia and the Sports Commissioners office. Both complaints are still pending but KAKL were also denied the chance to send a team to the national juniors championships in Johor Bahru.

Despite the issues with the national body, KAKL can take pride that it is still the best team in the country. And KAKL are prepared to take up the challenge with any team in the country to prove our worth.

KAKL also decided to create a state level Technical Officials course and the first course conducted this year yielded six new officials.

KAKL is looking to expand the course in 2010 and also start the KAKL Level One Coaching Certification.

The association also decided to honour the best players and officials with awards at a year ending annual dinner.

Despite the improvements, there are still many aspects that the KAKL needs to look into as the new year comes. We still have some outstanding financial issues that need to be settled as soon as possible.

We still need to ensure the standards set in 2009 is improved upon.

The KAKL would be organising the Second International Inter City Kabaddi Championships in March. We already have confirmation from teams from India, Nepal, US and are expecting teams from other countries to confirm their participation soon.

We are also in the midst of preparing our team for the Faridabad Gold Cup tournament in India as well as the Sukma in Malacca. We are the defending Sukma champions and are pretty confident of retaining the crown in June.

Our website has also shown steady increase in readership and we are proud that we have surpassed the 10,000 mark earlier this month.

We are planning a number of new things for the new year and would announce them soon.

As the year ends, we would like to thank all the KAKL members, players, officials, teams, clubs, the FT Sports Department, the Ministry of Sports, the FT Sports Council, KL City Hall and all the various individuals that made 2009 a year to remember.

Happy New Year from the president and council of the Kuala Lumpur Kabaddi Association.

New Photo Website

We have created a new photo website as our previous digest is already 99% full. The new photo site is http://picasaweb.google.com/klkabaddi2

The old site would still be accessible.

We have uploaded some pictures from Sukma 2008, IICKC 2008 and Faridabad 2008, which we managed to find from our archives.

Here are also some videos we managed to trace from Sukma and also the International Inter City in 2008

HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS!

We would like to wish all our friends a Merry Christmas!

Kudos to MMU

Kuala Lumpur clubs assisted in making the Multimedia University Melaka Campus Kabaddi championships organised by their Indian Cultural Society on Saturday a grand success.

Sri Devi Kabaddi club and Kg Pandan Lions made the trip to Melaka to participate in the championships.

The championship was the first time in recent times that a kabaddi tournament was organised in the state. Kudos to the MMU Indian Cultural Society (ICS) for their effort in developing and promoting the game in Melaka.



With kabaddi included at the Melaka Sukma next June, the effort by the Society would a long way in establising itself in Melaka.

Sri Devi defeated Kg Pandan Lions 37-28 in the final while ICS defeated Cyber MMU 42-8 in the playoff for third place.

The Sri Devi team at the tournament was a mix of players from the club and the Selayang kabaddi club.

The tournament was held for the Under-23 men's category with a 80kg limitation.

KL officials assisted in all technical aspects of the tournament following the last minute pullout from the tournament by officials from the Kabaddi Association of Malaysia (KAM) coming from Negri Sembilan.

Despite the pullout, KL officials with the enthusiastic support from ICS, the championships went on without any hitch.

Players from Melaka also gained plenty of experience playing against some of the best players in the country.

The MMU ICS have their own Facebook account here.

Beware of Trolls!!!

This entry is dedicated to the individuals who have trying hard to create animosity between the clubs affiliated to the KAKL.

They have actively attempted to do so by making unwarranted statements in the comment pages of the blog claiming to be members of the KL clubs. Their attempts to pit KL clubs against each other has so far failed.

These individuals have also been actively making prank calls to kabaddi teams outside KL claiming to be KL clubs and insluting them.

The KAKL is not too concerned with these Trolls, who have no interest whatsover in the development of the sport.

But it always better to be wary of this unsavoury characters.

Comment Moderation

We have always believed in open discussion on all matters related to the KAKL and its activities and we will still believe for the need of open discussion.

That was the reason why we had left our comment features in this blog unmoderated.

However, the KAKL is concerned by the spate of abuse by those leaving comments. We believe that these type of abuse is being engineered to create unnecessary problems.

As there are many youngsters also actively reading this blog, we are now forced to put in the safety features. All comments will now be moderated before being published.

We will continue to publish all comments regardless of whether it was in favour or criticising the KAKL. However, any comments with four letter and other abusive words would be deleted immediately.

We hope to unmoderate the blog in the near future once we find these abusive readers have learnt some decorum and manners of using public forum.

New dates for IICKC

The Kuala Lumpur International Inter City Kabaddi Championships has been rescheduled for March 4-7, 2010 at the Stadium Tertutup Titiwangsa.

The change was made because of various reasons but most importantly because of the KL teams participation at the Faridabad Gold Cup in early January. The change was also to accomodate the request from DBKL as the venue was not available on the original dates.

The change in the dates would also help KL prepare much stronger teams for the championships. The championships would serve as a good exposure for the KL Sukma squad.

This years championships has once again received the support from the Majlis Sukan Wilayah Persekutuan and the Jabatan Belia dan Sukan Wilayah Persekutuan apart from the DBKL.

KAKL in in the midst of securing other corporate sponsors for the championships.

Apart from teams from Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya, the championships would see several foreign cities participating.

To date teams from Kathmandu, New Delhi and Chennai have all confirmed their participation,

Defending champion Patialla of Punjab is also expected to confirm their participation.

KAKL expects a number of teams from Sri Lanka, India, Singapore and also at least one team from Europe to confirm their entry soon.

Final Phase

The final phase of training for the Kuala Lumpur team participating at the International Gold Cup tournament in Faridabad India is currently in progress.

The team is expected to leave for Faridabad on January 7 with the tournament scheduled from January 8-10.

Teams from at least seven countries including India, Thailand, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka are expected to take part in the tournament.

The Kuala Lumpur team finished runners-up at the tournament last year.

The Kuala Lumpur team to the championships is expected to be different from the side that played last year as emphasis would be given to the KL Sukma players.


Last years tournament match between teams from Afghanistan and Nepal

Despite sending a younger team, Kuala Lumpur still expects to do well at the tournament.

The tournament would also be helpful in giving the players the much needed top level exposure.