It’s a tight three-horse race to host this year’s Africa Elite Boxing Championships in October.
Ghana are still basking in the glory of successfully hosting the African Games boxing tournament at the Bukom Arena in March.
However, the hurdle facing the Ghanaian bid is whether the government is ready to shoulder another financial responsibility of staging a major event of this magnitude taking into account their massive expenditure in organising the continental event this year.
Otherwise, boxing remains one of Ghana’s most popular and successful sport with a huge following.
Ghana also boast of hosting the 1964 Africa Elite Championships, and is among Africa’s boxing giants with the distinction of producing the continent’s only medallist at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in featherweight Samuel Takyi who won a bronze medal.
Gabon and DRC have yet to stage the most prestigious boxing event in Africa, and this is definitely an added advantage in the two countries’ bid.
As for success in boxing and popularity of the sport, DRC have an edge over Gabon, not to mention good facilities and a strong government backing.
Among the big boxing events hosted by DRC include the 2022 main celebrations of International Boxing Day during which fairness, courage and diversity of boxing were the main values of the well organised festival in the capital city, Kinshasa.
The most memorable boxing event staged by DRC is the famous Muhammad Ali vs George Foreman Rumble in the Jungle world heavyweight title fight in 1974 in Kinshasa. It was attended by 60,000 people and beamed live to one billion viewers worldwide on closed-circuit television.
African Boxing Confederation (AFBC) Board of Directors meet this week to deliberate on the three bids and other important issues, amongst them September’s Africa Youth Championships in Guinea and the August 17 IBA Champions Night card in Addis Ababa. It’s the first time the series will be held on African soil.
Credit: AFBC Communications
