HEADLINES like “Mitanda postpones boxing meet,” “Tourney put off indefinitely” are not quite unusual in the sport of boxing, reflecting the perennial financial troubles that the boxing stables in Zambia suffer from.
It was reported last June 26 that Mitanda Boxing Stable had postponed to October this year a non-title tournament which was set for July due to budget constraints. According to the Post, stable manager Garry Sibanda said organisers of the tournament had managed to raise K20,000 out of the proposed K98,000 budget.
The tournament scheduled to take place on the Copperbelt would pit five boxers from Mitanda against those from Mwenya Musenge Boxing Stables in an effort to revamp the sport on the Copperbelt.
Two days later, the Post carried another story headlined “Vision Boxing unveils budget for Matero tournament” dubbed the “Fists of baptism” scheduled for August 29 at Matero Stadium in Lusaka. Stable director Henry Mulambo was quoted as saying his vision was to turn Matero Stadium into a Mecca of boxing.
“We want to revive the days of Lottie Mwale when boxing in Matero was the centre of sports” and take the sport to a higher level. This sounds like a good dream, to turn Matero Stadium into a Mecca of boxing, like Las Vegas in America.
But how can this be achieved in Zambia when the stories that fill the sports pages on boxing rarely brighten our faces as they are about budget shortfalls and postponement of tournaments as a result?
I tried to look at the number of stables registered with the Zambia Professional Boxing and Wrestling Control Board and those I can remember are Oriental Quarries Boxing Promotions, Exodus Boxing Promotions, Mwenya Musenge Boxing Promotions, Vision and now Mitanda who have been in the news for negative reasons.
I’m not sure if these are still there, but I also recall we had Amagents Boxing Stables, DS Stables and Oongeza Boxing Stables. The common denominator of most of the stables in this country has been their loud inactivity. In other words, although we have a number of stables, in itself a healthy development, they, sadly, exist only on paper.
Mulambo’s idea is well worth exploring further and, in my opinion, it might be a good idea if all these stables collaborated and worked together in staging tournaments. There’s no doubt that Oriental Quarries who have got the lion’s share and Exodus have tried to attract sponsorships from the corporate world and to some extent, I would add Mwenya Musenge, who staged at least one tournament last year.
Vision Boxing have staged a tournament  before although in the recent past their efforts did not achieve their desired results, but the fact that they are now preparing to stage an open air tournament in the densely populated Matero is a good idea.
Vision will, however, need to scale up efforts to woo sponsors for a tournament that on paper sounds like a best seller. They need to hype it up and convince the corporate world of the importance of their proposed tournament.
Matero has some big businesses- oil marketing companies like Odys and I hope Vision can target these and others in the area and rope them in into sponsorship deals. How about the mobile phone providers-MTN, Zamtel and Airtel? All these are looking for mass markets for their fast moving products.
Mulambo says his vision is to create boxing into an industry that would take young people off the streets and enable them make a living out of the sport. Vision have a chance to start putting this dream in perspective with the forthcoming tournament, but it will require more than a chance.   Comments: mwale.simon@yahoo.co.uk 0966755574/0953744074