Rumble Africa Promotions (RAP) chairman Teris Ntutu is disappointed after the SABC ‘snubbed’ his tournament, which was held at the Orient Theatre in East London on Sunday.
The tournament was headlined by an IBF Intercontinental and South African junior-featherweight title contest between Ayabonga Sonjica and his conqueror Bongani Mahlangu, who stopped him in the sixth round.
“They claimed that they received our application late and that that gave them logistical problems. It’s not true that we applied late. We even produced proof that we submitted everything on time. I think there was sabotage and I’m convinced about that,” Ntutu said.
Ntutu added that they spoke to Ruby Kandier, SABC Sport’s content manager for both radio and TV, on Thursday last week and she suggested that they postpone their tournament.
“They suggested that we must postpone the tournament and we refused. We couldn’t postpone the tournament because we had done that already,” Ntutu remarked.
“It would have been a problem had we postponed the tournament again. Boxers and trainers wouldn’t have understood. We had to push and go ahead with the tournament without the SABC even though they said they were willing to work with us in future. What is so strange is that we saw the SABC broadcasting trucks at the ICC on Sunday morning. We were very much surprised when we saw the their trucks.”
Kandier said: “It appears that there was some communication from BSA to the SABC. I don’t have all the information. When this was brought to my attention it was obviously too late.”
