Board clears Chazama over controversial bout

Malawi Professional Boxing Control Board (MPBCB) has resolved not to punish Salimu Chazama for going against the boards’s order to cancel his fight with Oscar Kaunda.

Last month, the MPBCB, in line with the World Boxing Council (WBC) rules, asked Chazama to rest for at least three weeks after his non-title bout against Tanzanian Allan Kamote. However, the lightweight boxer went ahead to fight Kaunda a week later.

MPBCB president Lonzoe Zimba, in an interview yesterday, said the executive committee met last weekend and resolved that Chazama should just be disciplined.

He said the boxer, who faced a maximum three-month ban, was cleared because his fight against Kaunda, which he won through knockout, was approved by the board’s former chairperson for Southern Region, Alfred Kuyenda.

“He [Kuyenda] confessed in the media having approved the fight, so it would be unfair to punish Salimu because one of the board’s officials was there and waved the fight on,” he said.

Kuyenda resigned after coming under fire for approving the fight against the rules of the sport. However, he described the board as being intolerant.

In the meantime, Zimba has said that a team, headed by renowned boxing administrator Mbachichi Nyirenda, has been appointed to discipline Chazama so that he must resist signing contracts for fights fixed in short schedules.

“The team will sit down with him and advise him so that he is not caught up in a similar situation,” he said.

Chazama has said he is relieved having escaped punishment.

“I was mentally tormented by the prospect of being banned when I felt that I had done nothing wrong. I am just pleased I will now be able to concentrate on building my career,” he said.

His next assignment is a rematch against Kamote in a Universal Boxing lightweight title in Tanzania on August 26 this year.