WBC pledges support for RI's pro boxing
WBC pledges support for RI's pro boxing
JAKARTA (JP): The World Boxing Council (WBC) has offered to
assist Indonesia with the composition of standards for
professional boxing management and in the development of
professional boxers, the council's president, Jose Sulaiman, told
a media briefing at the Borobudur Hotel on Saturday.
Sulaiman, from Mexico, arrived her on Saturday morning to
attend a meeting with the WBC finance committee, but he was keen
to share his vision of increasing the council's role in the
development of professional boxing in Indonesia.
"In Indonesia, there hasn't really been professional boxing.
It's not handled properly. I've come here with an infrastructure
and the ability to teach how professional boxing should be
handled.
"I will help to do many things for this country, and I plan to
put it at the highest level in the world of professional boxing."
Sulaiman said the WBC offered its help to develop medical
access for boxers, new technical skills and tactics, and to
establish a boxing school or high-tech gymnasium.
"You need a national plan for amateur boxing so that a boxer
will not only read about fighting, fight in the streets and then
go into the ring. You need a good structure for the
administration of boxing.
"So you need to invite medics and good promoters here who want
to build instead of destroy, and invest in the boxers' futures."
"We can provide a technical group, knowledge, strong promoters
and anything else required to help this country. I also want to
create a world boxing school. We are now in the process of
building modern gyms applying the latest technology. We have set
up some of them in South Africa, Spain, Mexico and Argentina," he
said.
Sulaiman said he would meet with authorities to discuss the
possibility of establishing a boxing school in Indonesia. He is
scheduled to meet Endro Sumardjo, the expert staff member of the
minister of national education, on Monday.
"The WBC will pay for all the gym equipment. We'll ask the
authorities to provide the property, a building, and we'll
install everything inside it."
Sulaiman said that Indonesia would not have difficulties
attracting sponsors for financial support if its professional
boxing already had a good structure.
The WBC was founded in 1963 and has 161 member countries.
It was established to control world title fights; determine
monthly ratings; provide medical programs and life insurance for
boxers; apply rules and regulations for professional boxing;
sponsor a sports medicine foundation; promote training for
boxers, referees, judges, doctors specializing in boxing and
trainers; implement pension plans; conduct a world boxing school;
and bestow awards.
Manahan Situmorang, chairman of the Indonesian Boxing
Association (ATI) -- one of the two professional boxing
associations in this country, along with the Indonesian Boxing
Committee (KTI) -- said his association would be prepared to
cooperate with the WBC in setting up and managing a boxing
school.
"We are trying to work with the government. If the plan can be
realized, we don't mind helping to manage the gym so that any
boxers and trainers can use it," he said after the conference.
Manahan also said that the ATI would request the WBC's support
to stage a WBC intercontinental bout in Indonesia.
"We'll also ask Sulaiman to allow Indonesian professional
boxers to get a WBC ranking, or at least a WBC intercontinental
ranking," he said.
Manahan added that the ATI also asked the WBC to provide
foreign coaches who had trained world champions, as well as
training for local referees and judges. (ivy)