ATI, KTI gives mixed response to BP-POPI plan

Musthofid, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia has moved toward reinstating the Professional Sports Supervising and Controlling Body (BP-POPI) following a six-month ban slapped on the country's professional boxers by the World Boxing Federation (WBC).

The Indonesian Boxing Association (ATI) hailed the move, with its chairman Manahan Situmorang saying that he hoped it would be able to overhaul professional boxing in Indonesia.

"The national interest should be a priority. So I leave the task to the government to initiate a policy aimed at improving the conditions of professional boxing in Indonesia," Manahan told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

BP-POPI was dissolved last year after its umbrella institution, the state ministry of sports and youth affairs office, was terminated. The body covered not only boxing but other professional sports.

The high number of boxing deaths in Indonesia over the past 18 months was the reason for the WBC ban, the reestablishment of BP- POPI is expected to regain the international body's trust.

Blaming the incidents on the lack of boxer supervision and human error, BP-POPI is seeking to step up supervision on the boxing organization.

It is also likely to make itself the only authority to issue licenses for promoters, managers, coaches and boxers, which means taking away a number of roles currently taken by ATI and its long-standing counterpart KTI, the Indonesian Boxing Commission.

"We are ready to enter a new era. If ATI should be liquidated, then go ahead," Manahan said.

ATI was founded in 1999 by breakaway KTI officials.

Despite agreeing in principle to the government's planned move, KTI appeared to be more cautious about the prospect.

"As far as it is for the sake of national interest, we will be supportive. But at the moment we are waiting to see what the supervisory body will do next," Ebert Hutagalung, deputy chairman of KTI, said from Bandung, West Java.

"If it is to issue licenses, will there be any guarantee that boxing deaths will be avoided?" he said.

Meanwhile, a government official said talks on the issue would be held on Tuesday.

"With there being various pros and cons in the plan, we feel it is important that we reach a settlement so that no side feels robbed of its function and we can get through the transitional phase," said Iskandar Adisapoetra, secretary of the directorate general at the Ministry of National Education.

"We will discuss the mechanism, with a view to giving Indonesian professional boxing a better future," he said.

With the prospect for other international bodies, such as the World Boxing Association (WBA), and International Boxing Federation (IBF) to follow suit, Manahan sees the ban as a serious threat to the development of professional boxing.

"It is not the boxing bodies that suffer but the boxers, who have to make a living by fighting," he said.

But Ebert opined differently.

"I don't see it as a serious issue, because we have rarely been involved in OPBF fights. Our latest date with the OPBF was back in 1994," he said.

"We can fight under other bodies," he said, specifically mentioning the Pan Asia Boxing Association (PABA), an affiliate of the WBA.

He pointed to the 2000 PABA convention, which had not raised the issue of boxing deaths in Indonesia.