Patrick Johnson
Mr Patrick Johnson, General Secretary of the Ghana Boxing Authority (GBA), has said, there are potential world beaters in other parts of the country, apart from the Greater Accra region.
He said the nation abounds in boxing talents in other regions and that there was the need for the National Sports Authority (NSA) and the GBA to expand the search for such world beaters in other parts of the country.
“Ghana’s current youngest world champion Isaac ‘Royal Storm’ Dogboe, comes from the Volta Region of the country but when we talk about boxing, Volta would not be mentioned. The GBA believes there were other equally good boxers in other regions other than the capital who won’t come to the limelight until we search deeper.
Speaking with the GNA Sports, Mr. Johnson said the NSA needs to build at least two well equipped boxing gyms accompanied with good trainers, in each of the regions in the country, in order to unearth more juvenile and amateur boxers, out of which a world champion can emerge.
He added that, coaches must also be given the opportunity to update their knowledge in the sport with regular international courses, at least every three to six months.
“Such coaches must be on government’s payroll so that they would be training boxers from the grassroots and I’m convinced the country would benefit from them,” he added.
He said the initiative can significantly reduce the number of unemployed youth on the streets and bring more laurels to the nation.
Mr Johnson noted that, most of the coaches in the gyms were paid from their contracts with their professional boxers and they used part of that profit to train juvenile and amateur boxers.
He applauded government’s regional boxing coaches’ deployment policy, but underlined the need for more to be done, and that, government’s support at the juvenile and amateur level was not enough and needed to be improved. –GNA
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