Council orders boxing delinking
The Sports Council has ordered the Malawi Boxing Association (Maba) to delink from its ‘rebellious’ affiliate, the National Professional Boxing Committee (NPBC), by the end of the month.
NPBC has been fighting for its autonomy, leading to verbal wars with Maba. The impasse could end after council executive secretary George Jana wrote Maba general secretary Arthur Nanthuru on January 7 2013.
“We wish to suggest and strongly recommend that within this month of January, you set up and conduct a meeting/seminar where this matter is to be discussed and agreed with all your structures…” reads the letter.
Council wants Maba to clearly define the structures in terms of: “Content of your statutes and those for professional boxing, composition of committees to separately manage the two streams of boxing, usage of available boxing facilities by the two streams of boxing.”
The letter follows a directive from the International Amateur Boxing Association (Aiba) asking Maba to separate administration of amateur from professional boxing. NPBC is currently among Maba affiliates.
Last week, NPBC general secretary Daud Chikwanje said his body was supposed to be directly answerable to international entities such as the World Boxing Council and not Maba.
Chikwanje said this after Maba demanded documents to back up an aborted trip for a fight in Ethiopia that he brokered for boxer Chimwemwe Choitcha against Tanzanian Francis Cheka scheduled for January 26.
In reaction to council’s latest letter, Nanthuru, in a letter The Nation has seen, pushed the ball back to NPBC for them to act quickly in stating their terms of reference.
“I propose that we meet at your convenience some time next week to resolve the impasse once and for all. I propose that you bring your lawyer to the meeting. I firmly believe that your failure to read and comprehend the letters that I have been sending to you has perpetuated the impasse unnecessarily. Please take this letter seriously,” Nanthuru wrote last week.
When contacted through e-mail yesterday, Nanthuru said: “Please refer to my earlier responses to your queries on this matter. I have always said that Maba has never stopped anyone from registering a body to promote professional boxing. I even sent you a Maba resolution to that effect. I have routinely told Messrs [Lonzoe] Zimba and Chikwanje to go ahead and register their organisation.”
NPBC and Maba stepped on each other’s toe last year when the former claimed to have registered as an independent entity, saying the world over professional boxing wings are never under national boxing bodies.
