Deplorable experience the national boxing team is presently having at the National Indoor Stadium in Dar es Salaam where it has pitched a training camp is testimony to it?s biting financial drought that may have falsely caused enthusiasts of pugilism to think that authorities have relegated it to the backyard of their mind in preference to football, and other sports.
Relevant authorities? reaction to the sport?s state and their plans for its development may generate more love for it. To sports observers, there does not seem to be any for boxing.
A couple of years ago President Jakaya Kikwete allowed employment of a Brazilian football coach Marcio Maximo, who took charge of the national soccer team, Taifa Stars, from June 26, 2006 until 2010.
The government?s involvement in having the Brazilian coach Taifa Stars was an act that drove boxing fans to conclude that the slug fest may after all be a mere third after field events with football as the leading sport in the country.
Director of Sports in the Ministry of Information, Youth, Culture and Sports, Leonard Thadeo, says it is wrong to conclude that the government favours football and has neglected boxing. Development of sports in the country first starts with their respective clubs and the relevant associations.
Financial assistance for football is a spontaneous reaction by its stakeholders and fans some of whom donate millions. ?Business organisations like Tanzania Breweries Limited (TBL) and Vodacom donate often to football teams in the country because it is good for their business,? Thadeo explains.
?Soccer has many fans and many bodies or individual people who are ready with funds to sponsor it.? Supportive of Thadeo, Athletics Tanzania (AT) Secretary General, Suleiman Nyambui, says most sports associations in the country are disorganised and their leaders mere armchair officers.
The 1978 All-Africa Games bronze medalist and silver medalist at the 1980 Summer Olympics criticises local sports bodies? inclination of demanding assistance from the government while they do not show what assistance they need or how they will use it.
It is not practicable, Nyambui adds, that sports officials at the ministry cannot physically supervise athletics progress in the regions. It is upon the organisation to lay down programmes and make efforts to generate funds for their development. ?They need to present a programme of action for the government to assist accordingly, but they do not have such a plan,? he explains.
Nevertheless, it is still wrong to say or even to think that the government had ignored boxing. ?For the last Commonwealth Games the government sponsored various teams for training overseas. Athletes trained in New Zealand and boxers were also sent to China and Turkey and a karate team was sponsored to train in China,? Thadeo told the Daily News recently in a telephone interview.
Still, observers have it that boxers and their fans may have ground for thinking that they are not taken all that seriously in the country. Thadeo asks: ?What big business body would stake its money in sponsoring boxing? What is there in doing so for them??
Nyambui says if the amount of money Vodacom, TBL and other business organisations pour into football were given to sponsorship of athletics and boxing, Tanzania would be harvesting bags of medals in international tournaments almost every other day. The flood of financial assistance for football has created a false picture that the government favours the game and made soccer fans the envy of other sports who still allege that boxing particularly has been neglected. They base their complaints on some recent record on football in the country they quote as proof. Recently Tanzania has invested more money in the team in the hope of improvement. Taifa Stars beat Burkina Faso twice in the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers and triumphed 1-0 against Cameroon in a friendly match. The most recent result was a 3-1 win over Morocco in a World Cup Qualifying in Dar es Salaam. Under the leadership of Maximo Taifa Stars qualified for the African Nations Championship (CHAN) finals, which took place in Ivory Coast from February 22 to March 8th, 2009. Tanzania qualified after beating Sudan 5-2 on goal aggregate. A splendid result! Achievement of Tanzania national boxing team under Bulgarian Kenchev was likewise splendid. The team reigned supreme in East and Central African contests. However, it is now decades since the nation?s boxing team last had an international coach or an African medal. Thadeo counters by saying: ?In the sixties and seventies the world was divided into two political camps in a cold war and the sports coaches we had from the socialists were given to us free of any pay. They were some sort of free assistance so it is wrong to compare that time and now. The Americans gave us such trainers like Mr Cobs.? A recent remark by Boxing Federation of Tanzania (BFT) Secretary General Makore Mashaga implying that the government had abandoned the national boxing team may, therefore, be considered misdirected. Thadeo insists that sports organisations have the duty to chart out means to look for funds. ?It is also their responsibility to organise contests to develop their team?s standard,? he says. Still, boxing lovers content that the whole meaning to participate in global contests is to uphold national honour and that honour lies in boxing, which they consider a fountain of medals. That hyped medal fountain is today no more with boxing compared to other athletic events, Thadeo says. ?Leaders in the sport of boxing must show the will to develop the game and have programmes of action. The government will always assist where need be,? he says.
By?LAWI JOEL, Tanzania Daily News
