The National Boxing Championship (NBC) and Arena Holdings have ensured they stick to the rules by depositing boxers’ purses two weeks before their tournament taking place in Parktown on Friday evening.
The ground-breaking event will see seven bouts being contested in the flyweight division as boxing and the commercial sector launch a unique collaboration involving music performances at tournaments.
NBC chair Andile “Ace” Ncobo said purse money for boxers had been deposited to Boxing SA two weeks ago to abide by sports minister Gayton McKenzie’s call to ensure promoters keep their end of the bargain for smooth operation within the sport.
Most promoters have often been caught off guard by leaving it too late to comply with BSA rules of adhering to the 14-day cash deposit rule, leading to a slew of tournaments being cancelled.
This has been flagged as one of the shortcomings of boxing, contributing to the sport’s failure to attract dedicated broadcast partners and the corporate sector.
“We want to ensure that we talk the talk and walk the walk by abiding to the rules, so we deposited purse money two weeks ago,” Ncobo said.
“We do not want to criticise anyone, much less fellow promoters, but if we are to get boxing to where it should be and make it a viable sport for television we must ensure that we do not mess with scheduling.
“Television needs confirmation in advance to stick to original scheduling to synchronise its programming and if boxing is to get it right it needs to stick to that arrangement.”
Arena Holdings coastal commercial officer Bongani Siqoko said the partnership with NBC would breath a new lease of life into how boxing tournaments were run.
“We want to move away from the traditional way of staging tournaments by embracing modern methods to bring boxing back to the mainstream of sport operations and organisation,” he said.
“Sport has evolved exponentially and as we fuse boxing with other forms of entertainment we must not forget to abide by the rules.”
Daily Dispatch
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