Professional Boxing Association of Botswana (PBAB) plans to implement strategies that will enable its boxers to compete in more local title championships. This was revealed by PBAB mouthpiece, Kenny Maragana.
Currently there are more international tournaments than local events. Local boxers get a chance to compete with each other in national championship matches once in a while.
Maragana said with the new platform boxers will be able to measure their level of competitive spirit amongst themselves. As well as good guidance in terms of ranking purposes or matching opponent both locally and internationally.
“The agenda is to build structures that shall ensure that matters of interest are attended to with effectiveness, the developments concerned include amongst others sanctioning committee and technical commission,” he added.
Even though the government tried to compensate boxers and trainers after Covid-19 paralyzed sport, Maragana indicates that the compensation did little to nothing to rescue the situation.
He mentioned that the association will expand partnerships with more international boxing bodies, including the World Boxing Federation (WBF), World Boxing Confederation (WBC) and African Boxing Union (A.B.U) to open pathways for local boxers.
Maragana added that there is a need for a coordinated approach to ensure a win-win for all stakeholders. He said PBAB wants to maintain an environment where no one would feel or appear to be disadvantaged. He said the grounds are to be levelled to guard against unfavourable situations whereby others seems to have a lion’s share, something which may threaten sports development.
“Professional boxing assists a lot in sports economics. It is a fertile ground for local businesses, boxing families become major beneficiaries of sports. Improves the visibility and publicity of the sports. It is along that awareness that business partners and knowledge is transferred,” he observed.
Interestingly the government and private sectors are constantly embracing boxing, Maragana added. With that PBAB hopes the two bodies worth to match together to ensure more competitive spirit as well as to provide check and balance.
Furthermore, he said,” PBAB is at an infant stage and adequate preparation are being made to create a conducive environment for women. Female counterparts have proved to be capable beyond measure. They are records that even with our amateur structures they represented the country well and even claimed highest awards in the land. In the previous clash of our Super Bantam Weight gladiators between Onkarabile Mothibedi and Moabi ‘The Eagle’ Ngaka, women boxers were engaged to motivate and to set pace for more females in the sport.”
