WABA chief fumes at non-recognition by BSA

Onesmo Ngowi has reacted with anguish to the revelation this week that Boxing SA’s sanctioning committee did not give approval to a World Alliance Boxing Association (WABA) middleweight bout between Mapule Ngubane and Emilly Kabwe because the regulator does not recognise his organisation.

WABA was established in 2019 and Ngowi from Tanzania is its president. The former IBF Africa president revealed in a statement that some people who had alliances with other sanctioning boxing bodies were on the board of BSA when WABA was formed in 2019.

“Why is this happening? he asked. “A boxing board cannot choose a sanction body for a boxer. This is up to his/her promoter and manager. BSA has no business choosing which sanctioning body should South African boxers associate with. WABA is doing very well in many countries of Africa, USA, China, Europe, Asia and Australasia, and South Africa is the only country that has stopped us from sanctioning our title.”

A furious Ngowi had learnt through a Sowetan report that BSA doesn’t recognise WABA.

“There is no way a sanctioning body should apply recognition from a country’s boxing bodies. When promoters approach sanction bodies like WABA, they are given approval or rejection of their application for the title. None of this is shared with country bodies.

“When I introduced IBF Africa in South Africa in 2002 during the leadership of the late Dumile Mateza, I had no problem at all sanctioning titles in South Africa until I left IBF in 2019. All IBF sanction letters were sent to promoters and BSA was never mentioned.”

Ngowi added that he had a virtual meeting with current BSA board’s acting CEO Nsikayezwe Sithole, who promised to forward his request to the board for consideration.

Sithole said: “The process of recognising his boxing body is still to be followed; we will let him know once we are about to start looking at his request. As things stand, we have not finalised internal processes ... so we don’t recognise it.”

Promoter Nomfundo Malinga of Sugarboy Malinga Promotions wanted to include the WABA fight in her first boxing tournament that will take place in Ladysmith, KZN, on February 12.