Sports Council must resolve boxing crisis

So far there is no clear definition as how best to take control of professional boxing activities.
The NSC looks to be beating around the bush on establishment of a tool that can be responsible to take care of professional boxing.

The international boxing federation, (AIBA) has ordered all national sports associations across the world to merge professional and amateur boxing and coordinate their activities.

While the amateur boxers are well taken care under Boxing Federation of Tanzania (BFT), the professional ones are still hanging by a lose thread.

The NSC had previously started well to form a committee that would oversee formation of board of control for professional boxers. However, it is not immediately clear what actually went wrong as things fell apart.

Formation of the board of control would have eased the supervision and undertaking of professional boxers’ activities in the country.

In a bizarre twist of events, the NSC opted to handover all professional boxing activities to a personal body, Tanzania Professional Boxing Organisation (TPBO) which lacks nation-wide structure.
This move has ignited complaints from the rest of professional boxing bodies that used to share the cake for organising boxing contests.

NSC is not in a position to give reasons of abandoning formation of a board of control and instead opt to delegate the boxing business to a personalised body.

In fact the NSC is supposed to go back to the drawing board and formulate a board that would supervise boxing activities for the professionals or delegate everything through the Boxing Federation of Tanzania (BFT).

At this stage, the NSC looks to have failed to harmonise the professional boxers while opening a wide room for extensive crisis in the profession.

Failure to form the board of control will certainly create more trouble for the professional boxers who already are struggling to put their house in order.

There is no short cut to control professional boxers and the only way is to establish their body that would coordinate their activities.

While the NSC makes a huge oversight in resolving the professional boxers’ confusion, the game is now heading to more rows and troubles.

As professional boxing involves monetary transactions, there must be ways to take control of contracts and supervise rights of the boxers and duties of the mushrooming promoters.

Already complaints are being raised over unscrupulous promoters who happen to con boxers as they deliberately decline to pay their dues at the end of bouts.

Barely two years ago, Tanzanian professional boxer Francis Cheka came close to abandon a WBF bout against visiting American as he protested over unpaid contractual sum.

Even the visiting American boxer left the country with empty hands as a result of mistrustful promoter who failed to pay him.

Before things goes out of control, NSC chairman Dioniz Malinzi and his secretary general Mohamed Kiganja have to take bold steps to resolve this impending disorder.