The International Baseball Federation (IBAF) has created an 11-member panel that will promote and develop the women's game globally and lead the bid for the sport's addition to the Olympics.

 

Members of the panel - led by former chief executive of the Women's Sport Foundation, Donna Lopiano - are from Canada, China, Japan, Taiwan, Nigeria, India, Cuba, Portugal, Australia and South Korea.

 

It is a central part of the IBAF's bid to get baseball reinstated as an Olympic sport for the 2016 Games.

 

The International Olympic Committee voted in 2005 to drop baseball and softball from the Games for London 2012.

 

The IBAF included a push to get women's baseball on the Olympic roster after softball rejected its proposal for a joint softball-baseball Olympic bid.

 

The federation estimates that more than 400,000 women and girls play baseball globally, a number it expects to double in coming years.

 

It is proposing a five-day, eight-team women's baseball Olympic tournament alongside the men's.

 

Baseball is one of seven sports hoping to be included in the programme for 2016.

 

The others are golf, karate, roller sports, rugby sevens, softball and squash.

 

The International Olympic Committee's (IOC) ruling Executive Board are due to recommend two sports for inclusion in the 2016 Games at a meeting in Berlin on August 13.