The SA National Amateur Boxing Organisation (Sanabo) Open Boxing League kicks off on Saturday at Mdantsane Indoor Centre near East London, Sanabo president Andile Mofu said yesterday.

Mofu paid tribute to Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula for injecting R10-million into the project, which is aimed at producing boxers for both the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, next year and the Olympics in Tokyo in 2020.

South Africa had no boxing representatives at the 2016 Rio Olympics last August, for the first time since readmission to the international sports arena.

Mofu explained that the league involves all nine provinces and each will have 10 males and five female boxers.

"We have divided the nine provinces into two corners - red and blue. Five provinces in the red corner are the Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Northern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State and their action begins at Mdantsane Indoor Centre on Saturday," said Mofu.

"It will take five weeks to get No 1 and No 2.

"In the blue corner we have North West, Gauteng, Limpopo and Mpumalanga. Action will take place in Gauteng and the venue is yet to be confirmed. Again, we will be looking to produce No 1 and No 2 from the blue corner.

"After that we will skip a week before staging the finals at Mdantsane Indoor Centre. Winners will walk away with gold medals while losers will settle for silver and bronze.

Added Mofu: "Out of the league, we will select a national team going to the championships in Angola but the biggest plan is to have them in the African Championships, which are the qualifiers for the World Championships later in the year.