Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture, Zizi Kodwa, has revealed that the government is focused on bringing stability and good governance to Boxing South Africa (BSA) following a decision by the National Professional Boxing Promoters Association (NPBPA) to take him to court citing lack of consultation before he appointed and announced the new BSA board.
The NPBPA took Kodwa to court and successfully interdicted the installation of the new BSA board, which is made up of Sifiso Shongwe, Luxolo September, Sakhiwe Sodo, Romy Titus, Princess Mangoma, Nande Mheshe and Dr Mary-Gene Manthata-Setati.
“The issue of boxing, for me, is quite an urgent one. When we came in, boxing has not been good both in terms of stability of leadership and good governance. And we have been trying to stabilise the two. Obviously, there’s a number of pushbacks even among the people within the BSA, some call themselves promoters,” Kodwa said on Friday.
“We are dealing with the issue. It takes time, but we have got to be careful in whatever we do. In a matter of days, I am considering a number of options, including that in the interim while we are dealing with the issue of the main application of the court ruling, whether we should consider appointing an administrator to do the same work that the board would have done.”
Kodwa added: “We are considering that because we do not want licensees, the boxers and the sport of boxing to suffer because of the lacuna that is there because the board was interdicted. I want to bring boxing to its glory days. Whatever we do, we must make sure that there is clarity on issues of governance, there is clarity on issues of stability of leadership.”
Currently, boxing activities in South Africa have come to a halt because of the NPBPA’s court challenge. All tournaments that were scheduled for this weekend until the beginning of March have been postponed until further notice.
