The Ghana Boxing Federation (GBF) has blamed bad officiating for their poor performance at the Olympic Games qualifiers in Senegal.
According to the Vice-President of the federation, Dauda Fuseini, they would soon commence the process of appealing the bad decisions that were handed to the Ghanaian boxers at the qualifiers.
Explaining to the Graphic Sports in an interview about how they lost most of their fights, the vice-president said they were handed a raw deal and fights that were obvious Ghanaian boxers had won were still called for their opponents.
He said the GBF would not sit unconcern by what had happened to them even though he was aware that at the amateur level, there was no room for protest. But he was confident when they start now, a time will come where authorities would see the need to offer an avenue for protest.
Dauda Fuseni – 1st Vice-President of Ghana Boxing Federation
“Honestly, we are going to protest although it won’t go far with amateur boxing when you protest but I think it will be a starting point for us because these has been the norm. They rob you and say when you appeal or protest, it doesn’t go far.
“But I think it’s time we did that. We have to put it to test and keep pushing and one day I believe they would listen to us and reconsider and give a fair judgement.
“I believed officiating in Dakar wasn’t fair, they were not fair to Ghanaian boxers because when you look at a boxer like Jonathan Tetteh, he won the fight, we had the scoresheet indicating clearly that he won that fight but to our surprise, it was given to the other boxer”, he stated.
The vice-president said officials attributed the reason for calling the verdict for Tetteh’s opponent to the misbehaviour of the Ghanaian boxer at the end of the fight for which a point was deducted from his points but that couldn’t cause his defeat.
“They said he misbehaved at the latter part of the fight, so they deducted a point which I don’t even see the need for. But even if that was done, looking at the score card with one point deducted, he still should have won the fight, but they gave it to the opponent which I think they have not been fair to us.
“Theophilus Kpakpo Allotey also was completely robbed. He won the fight because he dropped his opponent once in round one, twice in round two and yet still they managed to give the verdict against him which it’s also a bad verdict”, he emphasised.
Credit: Graphic Sports
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