DAVID ISAACSON | Whose corner are the boxing regulators in?

Nestor Tobias of Namibia fought in SA for most of his career as a professional boxer in the 1990s. 

He retired in 1999 and became a promoter, doing a decent job over the years, helping create world champions out of Windhoek, the capital of a country with a population of just more than 2.5-million. 

Sadly Tobias has also become a manipulator of facts, a painter of half-truths or, in layman’s terms, a bullshitter.  

Boxers who fought at his tournament on October 29 have only just been paid — two weeks after the fact — and he put out a statement this week saying this was normal practice. 

Say what?

“We do, however, acknowledge that there has been a slight delay in processing payment, which is totally acceptable practice in boxing where visiting boxers would get paid via wire transfer after the fight with anything between one or two weeks after the fight depending on what was agreed upfront.”

Two weeks is a slight delay? First of all, the boxers who fought on Tobias’s bill chose to stay on in Windhoek, preferring not to fly home and wait for a wire transfer, to ensure they actually got the money. 

And I’ve been told that one of the heavier category fighters actually threatened to apply his ring skills on the promoter’s head and body if he failed to cough up. They clearly also didn’t think this was standard practice. 

“This practice is totally normal. Talking from our own experience, our boxers would in some instances wait for up to a maximum three weeks for payment to come through from foreign promoters, wherever they are in the world, because we understand these promoters have to follow due process before processing such payments. 

When the bodies regulating boxing fail to fulfil their oversight roles, you have a problem. 

“We, therefore, always fly back immediately after fights outside the country because we know that the funds will be transferred.” 

It is true that in some cases boxers are paid after the fact. It’s not uncommon for a DAZN contract to stipulate payment “within five working days” of the tournament. 

But the contract Tobias had with boxers, on the official Namibia Professional Boxing and Wrestling Control Board letterhead, stated that payment would be “furnished” to the commission no later than 14 days before the tournament. 

According to Bruno Pereira, manager of Sabelo Ngebinyana, who challenged unsuccessfully for a World Boxing Organisation (WBO) title, the Namibian body told him to refer queries to the world sanctioning body. 

I emailed them at the weekend, and by late Tuesday afternoon I had received no reply. I know the WBO officials got paid, so I guess the body does not care two hoots about the boxers. I would not be surprised if, should they get back to me, refer me to the Namibian commission. 

When the bodies regulating boxing fail to fulfil their oversight roles, you have a problem. 

There was a case in 2006 when Laila Ali, the daughter of Muhammad Ali, came to SA to fight, but it fell through because the promoter didn’t pay her what he had promised.  

The agreement was that she would be paid in tranches, and after not receiving the second tranche, she allowed the promoter extra time to find the cash, but when the money didn’t appear, she pulled out a week before. 

The promoter handling the fight was a well-known shyster by the name of Joe Manyathi. He had failed to pay boxers previously and had actually lost his licence as a result, but somehow he got a backer who paid his debt, allowing him to be relicensed. 

There was a story that he once walked out of a restaurant without paying a hefty bill, and when questioned on it, claimed it had slipped his mind. 

Boxing SA, chaired at the time by Dali Mpofu, was called to account at parliament, and they lay the blame on the collapse of the fight, not on the promoter but on Ali herself.

If she had lowered her purse, they argued, the fight would have progressed. The basic thrust was that she had been unreasonable by not lowering the purse for which she’d signed. The promoter had approached her — it’s not as if she chased after Manyathi. 

The majority of the sport committee in parliament, chaired by Butana Komphela, actually swallowed this. Yet another body of oversight failed.  

Since then Boxing SA has failed as a regulator several times, for various reasons, including purses not being paid on time. 

And people wonder why boxing keeps getting hit by scandals.

Mark my words, things will only get worse in Namibia.