Boxing Ghana caught up with Dauda Fuseni, vice president of the Ghana Boxing Federation, for a chat on why Ghana opted out of the inaugural Mandela African Boxing Cup which was held at the International Convention Centre in Durban, South Africa.
As is expected, we posed the question on the lips of the ardent Ghanaian boxing lover, Why Ghana refused to participate, and this was what he had to say:
“So the issue here is that the Mandela cup registration was opened just around the time we were having the African Games.
And of course, all the attention went to the Games wanting to get more Gold for Ghana.
The fact behind our inability to participate in the Mandela cup was that we were beaten by time. At the time the attention was shifted to the South Africa tournament, the registration was closed.” He said.
“You know when presenting athletes to a tournament, we need to send our best athletes in order to be able to achieve something and these same athletes were busily focusing on the Africa games besides some also came back from Italy for the first edition of the Olympic qualifiers so you can imagine.
Our inability to participate in the Mandela cup was not intentional.” He told Boxing Ghana
Asked who their contact person was, the boxing matchmaker mentioned the African Boxing Confederation (AFBC) competition chairman.
“In fact, at a point, we had to contact the organizers for an opportunity to the database system in order to be able to register, but it didn’t work.”
We quizzed on when the registration process ended.
“The registration was closed somewhere around the end of March.” Dauda expressed.
This position somewhat contradicts what the Public Relations officer Jojo Ephson said in an interview.
“Please, it will not be our interest, just returning from the Africa Games with all the expenses. The Government wasn’t ready to offer anything for the Mandela tournament.
Morocco, Nigeria, Zambia, and others are not at the Mandela Cup.” Jojo told Boxing Ghana.
The maiden edition of the Mandela African Boxing Cup was indeed historic, and the event provided a platform for athletes to showcase their skills and sportsmanship, fostering camaraderie and healthy competition among nations whiles rewarding winners handsomely.
This is indeed a developing story, and Boxing Ghana will publish the full interview with the GBF’s spokesperson Jojo Sergius-Ephson in our subsequent bulletin.