Sanctioning committee finds difficulty in applying regulations

The sooner boxing regulations are amended, the better. That is because some of them are stifling what could be a smooth administration of the fistic sport in SA.

Some are contributing to the ongoing friction between the sanctioning committee and promoters.

For example Regulation 6 (1), on approval of championship and elimination bouts, says: “All bouts shall receive the sanctioning from the chairperson of the sanctioning committee or where necessary, direct approval from the chairperson of the Boxing SA board.”

That makes it difficult for the sanctioning committee to apply that regulation.

Right now the sanctioning committee has a challenge regarding the sanctioning of two tournaments of promoters Hlula Dladla and Ayanda Matiti, which are way over the required number of rounds.

Their tournaments will feature five titles in Durban and East London, respectively.

Dladla’s tournament dubbed “Impi” features an SA women title fight (10 rounds), three KZN titles (all 10 rounders), a WBA Pan Africa title fight (10 rounds) plus many more fights and in total it has about 90 rounds.

Matiti’s fourth edition of his annual “Night of Champions” event has four male SA championship bouts (all 12 rounders) and a provincial title fight, which will be contested for over 10 rounds. In total his tournament has 58 rounds.

The sanctioning committee can only request that Dladla and Matiti write motivation letters requesting condonation for exceeding the required number of rounds.

Dladla’s tournaments can be broken down to a two-day event. He told Sowetan: “This could have been influenced by pure excitement. I expect lots of people to attend especially with the involvement of Big Zulu in a celebrity fight, so I saw the opportunity to give them the real taste of boxing and I want all these champions to have a feel of appearing in front of big crowds. I thought of giving the fight fraternity a festival of boxing.”

BSA must be strict with kick-off time for such tournaments at night because some that started earlier ended way after midnight.

BSA board member Nsikayezwe Sithole told parliament last week that recommendations for the amendment of the regulations would soon be in the office of minister of sports Zizi Kodwa.