Kodwa calls for unity in boxing

Sports minister Zizi Kodwa has called on all South Africans to put their differences aside and work together for a common goal, which is to produce Olympians who will ultimately become household names globally.

No South African boxer has qualified yet for this year’s Olympics that will take place in Paris from July 26 to August 11.

Hopes of millions of South Africans now lie in the last leg of the qualifiers which will take place in Thailand in May and June.

The road to Thailand began on Wednesday at Inkosi Albert Luthuli ICC Hall in Durban where the International Boxing Association (IBA), together with the African Boxing Council and the SA National Boxing Organisation (SANABO), are staging the inaugural Mandela Challenge Cup.

Twenty-two countries are represented in that international boxing showpiece.

SANABO is using the Mandela Challenge Cup to gauge the preparedness of SA’s amateur boxers who will then be selected to go to Thailand.

The tournament in Durban could well be what the doctor has ordered for the ailing sport in the country where promoters literally see no value in boxers going to the Olympics.

“Let us focus, engage and work together to build this sport code that lies close to the hearts of millions of South Africans,” said Kodwa just after the judgement on the matter of the National Professional Boxing Promoters Association (NPBPA) versus minister of sport, arts and culture; finance minister Enock Godongwane; and Boxing SA’s accounting authority Mandla Ntlanganiso,  was dismissed with costs.

The verdict by the high court in Pretoria favoured Kodwa, Godongwane and Ntlanganiso.

The NPBPA had applied that the appointment of Ntlanganiso by Kodwa as the accounting authority should be declared irregular and invalid.