Gayton McKenzie revamp for boxing sees increases for fighters, officials

Sport minister Gayton McKenzie on Monday night announced a multi-million rand boost for professional boxing, pushing minimum purses for fighters from R4,000 to R20,000.

He also instructed that promoters receiving grants from provincial governments must put up 20% of the value themselves.

Speaking at a banquet to honour more than 30 boxing legends and former stars — giving them belts and paying R80,000 bonuses — McKenzie said his department was donating R1m to the boxers’ benevolent fund he previously said was plundered.

Ring officials would see their pay go up from R350 a fight to at least R2,000.

“Boxing is changing tonight,” McKenzie said at the function in Pretoria, describing the minimum payment of R1,000 a round for boxers as exploitation.

The minimum was legislated more than 20 years ago.

“The department of sport, arts and culture is giving, before the promoter’s money, before the sponsors’ money, we are subsidising every boxing fight by giving the boxer R10,000.

“That is not the prize money, that is a subsidy. No boxing fight must happen unless the promoter matches us rand for rand so there’s no boxing match ever that a person gets under R20,000 in this country.”

The shortest professional bouts in the country are four-rounders, but McKenzie didn’t mention if there would be a sliding scale for six-round and eight-round bouts.

A Boxing South Africa (BSA) official said the new payment structures would kick in from Tuesday for all new tournament applications.

“To the MECs, you have helped keep boxing alive, but some promoters get R1m from you and they give the boxer R4,000,” McKenzie said, adding that going forward promoters would have to stump up 20% of the provincial grants they received. 

McKenzie also put his foot down on the practice by previous BSA boards that allowed tournaments to proceed without the promoter having paid purse money in advance.

“The time is over when promoters are controlling politicians over what should happen. I’m in charge of boxing in this country and no one will tell me, I don’t care about your political connections,” he warned.

McKenzie also offered to assist promoters by putting them in contact with potential sponsors.

He said Betway had shown an interest in backing women’s boxing and they needed to find backers for the men’s game.

“We are your friends. We want to make sure the whole ecosystem of boxing gets money.”

McKenzie said his department would also underwrite the R2,000 payments to all ring officials, but promoters “must still pay them”.

On the benevolent fund, McKenzie said he wanted to see all fighters insured.

“We are going to make a donation to the benevolent fund. Our department is going to put R1m in there so we get all insurance companies to underwrite every boxer in the country.

“We’re going to call them one by one so when a boxer gets injured, his family must not run around and look for money for their medical attention.”

McKenzie announced the planned series of tournaments to honour former sport minister Steve Tshwete would kick off within two months at the renovated Orient theatre in East London.

The series will operate as an inter-provincial with four fighters from each province facing off over several months.

The department is also funding this.

“We’re not talking hundreds of thousands here, we’re talking millions,” said McKenzie.