Funds for the eagerly-awaited Steve Tshwete Boxing Series, which has delayed for more than a year, have been made available in all nine South African provinces.
And the availability of the funds to be used towards the staging of the Steve Tshwete Boxing Series throughout the country was confirmed by Boxing South Africa (BSA) chief executive officer, Tsholofelo Lejaka.
“The Steve Tshwete preparations are going well and as previously indicated the money for it, R1 million per province, is already with provinces as part of the conditional grant allocation. So, we are now just finalising preparations to kick-start in the second semester of the year,” Lejaka remarked.
This long-delayed series, in honour of the late South African Minister of Sport, Steve Tshwete who passed away in April 2002, was announced by current Minister of Sport, Gayton McKenzie, during a national boxing convention held at the International Convention Centre (ICC), KuGompo City, in February last year.
“We are putting in serious money in boxing. Boxing is part of our budget. We are going to have the Steve Tshwete tournament at the Orient Theatre, the home of boxing. I want to see which is the best province,” McKenzie said at the time.
And Lejaka said at the convention: “We are going to run it as a league. The competition is boxer-to-boxer, province-to-province. Each province will put together eight boxers, you multiply that by nine, that’s 72. The 72 boxers are gonna be fighting across the board. A knockout carries a particular point, a unanimous decision win a particular point, a split decision a particular point.”
It was revealed last year that the Steve Tshwete Boxing Series was going to be promoted by licenced BSA promoters, who would be given a chance to bid in order to host tournaments.
“We know that Boxing South Africa is a regulator, we don’t do tournaments. This is the opportunity for promoters. We will go into a bidding process,” Lejaka said last year. – Monwabisi Jimlongo
