By NDINAWE SIMPELWE and ADRIAN MWANZA –
A BOXING administrator says the current Zambia Boxing Federation (ZBF) and Copperbelt Amateur Boxing Association (CABA) executives should be voted out simultaneously for bringing confusion in the sport.
Duncan Ntemena, who is a former CABA executive member, said the sport has suffered and continued to go down because individuals in the two executives had put their personal interest first ahead of the sport.
Ntemena said in an interview that boxing on the Copperbelt has in the past few years been characterised by infighting and name calling among officials at the expense of the development of the sport.
“This CABA executive is working in the interim. The sport has gone down under the chairmanship of Major Austin Hambula and the secretary is nowhere to be seen. Even at tournaments no one from the executive comes to watch,” Ntemena said.
He said once the right people are put into the ZBF executive, the entire CABA will need to be removed.
“The entire CABA is going together with ZBF. Once we put in place people who are going to perform in ZBF, even us here in CABA will clean our house and put in new people. CABA is spineless, they just follow what they are told by Chileshe,” Ntemena said.
Meanwhile, ZBF and the Midlands Amateur Boxing Association (MABA) have come in full voice hailing the National Olympics Committee (NOC) over the brining to Zambia a British boxing expert, Mick Driscol, to drill boxers ahead of the Rio 2016 Olympics.
ZBF and MABA, who both have been on each other’s throat of late, have all spoken highly on the move saying it will only work to improve the sport. MABA though expressed reservations as they were not sure which coach was in charge of the boxers.
ZBF president Thomas Chileshe said the move was forward-thinking and expressed confidence the boxers will perform well at the Olympic qualifying tournament set for Cameroon.
Chileshe said Driscol would impart the British skills into the boxers and help them make the Olympics, which was the ultimate goal for the nation.
“The boxers will learn a lot from this man because the levels of boxing in Britain cannot be compared to the one in Zambia,” he said.
He said Zambian boxers needed to concentrate and be focused on the prize ahead and not just go out to participation.
MABA chairperson Christian Kalima said the NOC’s move was good and would yield positive results at the qualifiers where the ultimate goal was to qualify for the Olympics.
But Kalima added that the country had a number of experienced trainers who could stir the boxers to greater heights.
“We are not sure which coaches are in charge of the boxers because Kennedy Kanyanta and Maybin Gunduzani were handling them plus this expatriate from Britain,” he said.
He said Wisdom Mudenda was also summoned to coach the six boxers in camp ahead of the qualifiers.
