No Lip Service, Show Care To Ex-boxers Analysis
Aformer boxer is calling on sports organisations to stop exaggerating fake emotions on the deaths of former athletes.
Akuila Naidu finds it unsettling when organisations make statements like they are mourning and are saddened, which is untrue.
“It is what I call lip service, do you really think organisations care when former athletes, be that a boxer, footballer or others die,” he said.
The southpaw, who won the South Seas and Fiji welterweight championships in the 70s, vented his displeasure after attending the funeral of former boxer and mentor Bas Deo, (Wilisimeci Radovu), on Friday in Lautoka.
“No one from the Boxing Commission Fiji or their representative was at the funeral,” he said. “The former athletes hardly get any respect when they are alive and you would think they will get one when they are long gone, then you are wrong”. Naidu said heads of the many sporting organisations and those associated, do not know former athletes, let alone heard about them but on every passing, make it sound like they knew them well and are hurting on their passing. He said the only people who mourn and are saddened are families and friends who cared about them.
Naidu urges organisations to try to locate former sporting heroes, saying it does not take much to find someone in the country. “Only if you care for someone, you will care to look out for them,” he said.
“We live in a social media savvy world, easy to connect with people.”
Naidu said Bas Deo was a renowned welterweight and light middleweight boxer of his time. “The epitome of his career was the 1976 win against Fiji’s ‘Golden Boy’ Sakaraia Ve. Deo also represented Fiji in two Pacific Games,” he said.
“Show some real love when one is alive, not fake emotions of sadness and mourning after their passing.”