Boxers shouldn’t feel pain in pockets

The saga of two Tanzanian boxers being stranded at their country’s embassy in Pretoria for 10 days because they had been ripped off by a local boxing promoter, is beyond embarrassing.

The new board of Boxing South Africa (BSA) had to intervene to ensure that boxers Jesca Mfinanga and Egine Kayange were paid the wages they were promised and provided with flight tickets to return home. The total outlay was more than R95 000.

BSA chair Sifiso Shongwe has promised that there will be an investigation into the promoter. Elias Tshabalala, and that, if necessary, he would be sanctioned.

Tshabalala has claimed that “sponsorship delay” had been the primary cause of the nonpayment.

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He claimed he would have flown them home and then paid them later in Tanzania, but the boxers had been told by their board of control not to leave SA until they were paid.

The incident, though, shows that there needs to be stricter vetting of both promoters and events in boxing.

It might be an idea for our outspoken newly appointed Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie to look into this.

Boxing is a contact sport where participants can get hurt, but they shouldn’t also feel the pain in their bank accounts.

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