National Sports

Professional boxing body dupes boxers

The newly formed Professional Boxing Control Board (PBCB) started its work on a bad note when its general secretary Daud Chikwanje was on Monday manhandled by some members of boxer John Masamba’s camp for failing to honour an agreement.

Masamba, who lost to Crispin Moliati in a title fight organised by PBCB, was supposed to receive K30 000 ($180) whereas the winner was supposed to get K60 000 ($360), but both did not receive their dues.

While accepting not honouring his pledge, Chikwanje attributed the problem to the low turn out. He claimed it was Moliati’s trainer, retired Lt Colonel Jalare, who insisted that the bout should go on.

“That is the reason we failed raise enough money,” he said.

But the two boxers and Jalare blamed it all on Chikhwanje and the control board.

Jalare said what he told Chikwanje was that Moliati would still fight for the belt and not the money.

“I told them to pay Masamba and not Moliati. It was Chikwanje who organised the title fight and he was supposed to pay the boxers. The problem is that they did not have money to give the boxers. As a control board, they are setting a bad example,” said Jalare.

He added that in boxing you do not depend on gate collections to pay the boxers.

“All the same, they raised K18 000 [$107] from gate collections and they could have given that to Masamba, but they did not,” said Jalare.

Masamba’s brother and manager Wilson said PBCB have failed as an organisation.

“This shows that boxers are not in safe hands,” Wilson Masamba said.

Moliati also took a swipe at Chikwanje: “These people think boxers are fools. They want to use us. If I had demanded my money, it could have been worse for him [Chikwanje],” said Moliati.

The troubled lightweight title fight was meant to spice up the launch of PBCB.

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