General secretary of Nigeria Boxing Board of Control (NBBofC) Remi Aboderin has moved to clear the air on various allegations from promoters, boxers coaches regarding thier boxers not being ranked and recorded in the Boxrec system by detailing all there is to know alongside required and acceptable documents.
BoxRec or boxrec.com is a website dedicated to holding updated records of professional and amateur boxers, both male and female.
This comes after various allegations from promoters and boxing coaches concerning boxers not being recorded on Boxrec despite having fought citing one in particular who submitted fifteen names but NBB of C recorded only just seven.
Another boxer coach alleged that his boxer brought his NIN and yet he was not recorded having being told that they need to pay a sum of N200,000 hence the need to clear the air and give them proper education on the processes involved in getting ranked.
“They all belong under one category and that’s recording boxers fight on Boxrec and also a kind of payment but let’s face the issue of recording on Boxrec” – Aboderin began in an exclusive interview with Sports247.ng.
“These guys don’t have required requirements to get recorded on Boxrec because the boxer who submitted an NIN slip has no date of birth on it, that makes it invalid in the face of the owners of Boxreg, so they will not record it,” he explained.
“Doing that has actually affected his opponent from getting his own fight also recorded because you cannot just record for one boxer and not his opponent.”
“Secondly, yes the promoter promoted about thirteen to fourteen fights that night but he only submitted about twelve due to time of submission which shouldn’t be more than two weeks. It was just about a day to the expiration of two weeks that he submitted.”
“As soon as he submitted, we set out to record but we found out that a boxer was presented twice for a bout on the same night, that’s a NO. We told him before the boxer got into the ring that this boxer has fought before, he said no but when we did our due intelligence finding, we found out that the boxer fought someone earlier and he is coming to fight another person, that’s not allowed so we have to cancel those two bouts.”
“Other things I said must have occured is that he did not submit the identity with date of birth, genuine one that will be accepted by Boxrec on time, so I don’t know about him saying he submitted fifteen. No he didn’t, I think they were about twelve to thirteen but all those other files were invalid, we only recorded about eight so as to beat the time because if we do not submit before the expiration day, that means we will be paying $10 per recording and that’s about $80 which will cannot afford to do,” Aboderin clarified.
Inquiring further on the needed requirements in other to avoid future occurrence and allegations, the General Secretary disclosed that the first thing for a boxer to do is to have a boxers license which is the first requirement for professional boxing issued by the NBB of C secretariat.
“Of course, without your international passport, you can box because not all Nigerians have international passport but you must have a government issued I.D. card like; voters card, part registration, NIN, all those that falls in this category and approved by the government.”
“Also, it’s good for a professional boxer to have an international passport so that anytime they get an international bout, they can be available and just go for visa and jump into the plane,” he further advised.
“But, the first requirement is that they must be licensed by the board of course, get the boxers license, a government approved I.D. card which will carry your date of birth, picture and name for Boxrec to accept recording you on thier system.”
Responding to the promoters grievances, “two weeks before the bout, all the sum pulses of boxers that have agreed to fight on your bill must be submitted. That way, no boxer will say he/she doesn’t know about any promotion, someone is just using his name to publicize a fight.”
“It is mandatory that two weeks before your fight, boxers pulses and contract must be deposited with the board, that’s that the promoter needs to do.
Speaking to the mangers, Aboderin stated that as long as the promoter contacts them and they in turn have agreed to get thier boxer to fight, they must sign the contract so that the promoter can lodge them with the board.
He further referenced the Abeokuta’s debacle as a a result of the promoter not following procedures.
“We were in developmental stage of trying to bring back boxing, we allowed somethings to go but now that we have gotten boxing back into the society of Nigerians and all our boxers are ready to box and exhibit their talent, rules and regulations of professional boxing must be followed,” he concluded.
