DAVID ISAACSON | Boxing SA plays the man, not the ball, in its overdue press release

Fighters are supposed to play the person, not the ball, so to speak, so maybe that accounts for the poor quality of Boxing South Africa’s overdue press statement this week.

The regulator was supposed to respond to a slew criticisms thrown its way, including several that I reported on in the Sunday Times the weekend before last. 

The only problem, however, is that BSA’s tactic was to avoid dealing with the issues and details and rather paint the people behind the attacks as apartheid-styled racists. Maybe some are and perhaps others aren’t, but any second-year philosophy student will tell you that, as an argument, attacking the nature of one’s critic is fallacious, commonly known as ad hominem. 

“The board of BSA has noted with serious concern a concerted ill-informed and unwarranted media campaign by a group of few individuals who comprise of both licensees and as well as unlicensed persons,” the executive wrote.

“The grouping of white supremacists is using a Sunday newspaper journalist [I assume that’s me, folks] and an opposition political party. The board, while noting these attacks, had opted not to give credence to the allegations because they are largely false, misleading and based on poor or a serious misunderstanding of how the sport of boxing is run in the country.

“They are unsurprisingly perpetrated by individuals who suffer from gross intellectual laziness and incapacity to grasp the foundational documents that empowers the establishment of BSA and her associated powers and functions.”

BSA further lamented that “the media” failed to verify facts and simply regurgitated opinions of a group of individuals already posted on social media. “It is alarming for a large media house to publish stories and take sides without verifying facts.”

This is the same board that declined to respond to the questions I sent them before publication.

A major element of the Sunday Times story was the resignation letter of former acting CEO Cindy Nkomo, who cited board interference as a major problem.

The board doesn’t address this directly in its press release.

I also mentioned the high number of cancelled tournaments, which is further proof that BSA is not adhering to regulations that require purse money to be paid to it by promoters no later than 14 days before a scheduled tournament.

Boxers are the big losers when tournaments are cancelled or postponed. Again, the board does not address this.

I also wrote that BSA is demanding R86,000 in interest from a boxer it had overpaid in 2015 and 2016, possibly after the three-year prescribed period for debt had expired.

I’ve been told that promoters owing BSA money have not been charged interest, and I put this question to the regulator, which again chose not to respond.

Then there is the serious issue of sexual harassment, where several boxers, managers and trainers have told me how they have been groped by a BSA-endorsed doctor during examinations.

In the seven pages of BSA’s blah-blah statement, no mention of this is made.

It could not have hurt BSA to name its safeguarding officer and ask any boxers possibly affected to contact that person. That it failed to make mention of this suggests that the regulator doesn’t really care about the fighters.

The same is true of what used to be called the benevolent fund, now used for injured boxers. Why is it too much to let them know how it works and how to apply for it?

BSA however, did list its accomplishments, the first of which was the “galvanisation of the boxing fraternity”. From where I’m sitting the fistic fraternity is anything but galvanised.

BSA also highlighted its memorandum of understanding with the SABC which, in the long term, is aimed at delivering one live tournament a week.

That’ll be great if it happens, especially given the financial challenges facing the national broadcaster.

Boxing used to enjoy weekly space on SABC, and it died out when funds dried up and the then sport minister, Fikile Mbalula, duelled with the major SABC promoter at the time, Branco Milenkovic. 

This is an important element for the success of professional boxing, but it’s also worth remembering that the core business of BSA is not broadcasting. The Nevada state commission, for example, isn’t involved in the screening of mega fights in Las Vegas.

BSA also patted itself on the back for delivering training manuals for licensees “for the first time”.

Firstly, it’s not the first time, but they would need to go back decades to learn that.

Second, its manual seems as valuable as a bucket of warm spit given the horror show around the erroneous scorecard of the women’s national bantamweight title bout in East London last month. 

BSA says it reintroduced the Boxing Awards, though many felt that some of the recipients were not deserving. These awards possessed far greater stature when they were run by the now-defunct Boxing World magazine, before being usurped by BSA.

The board also praised itself for overseeing the establishment of the national professional boxing promoters association, including the drafting of its constitution.

Who cares? Why isn’t there a boxers’ association, which I would argue is far more important because they are the one group most likely to get screwed over.

Promoters are supposed to be business-minded people and not perpetually looking for assistance.

BSA also said it had strengthened relationships with the department of sport, arts and culture and all nine provinces, municipalities, sport confederations and even the body responsible for Olympic-styled boxing, Sanabo.

DSAC funds BSA R20m a year, so one would think that the regulator needs to have a good relationship there (by the way, the old commission used to be self-funding and operated on a staff complement of less than 15% of what it is now).

Sure, BSA has done some useful things, but it must realise that a mechanic who causes an airliner to crash cannot be congratulated for the 20 planes that flew without incident.

Hopefully it will find the time to actually address the criticisms and not the nature it has assigned to the people it believes to be making them.