Pacquiao launches bid to unearth Chinese boxing stars

BEIJING: Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao hopes to unearth the next Chinese world champion and help grow the sport with an academy in the largely untapped country.

T he 3 8 - y e a r - o l d , who controversially lost his World Boxing Organisation ( WBO) welterweight title to Australian Jeff Horn in July, was in Beijing this week.

He and Chines e spor t s - development f irm Dancing Sports held a signing ceremony that included plans to build a Manny Pacquiao International Boxing Academy in the capital, the company said.

Zhou Wenxin, chairman of Dancing Sports, said their tie-up would deepen Chinese-Philippine relations in boxing and beyond.

The academy wi l l draft in coaches from abroad to help develop Chinese boxing, which has never had a truly world- class fighter. There is no public timeline

In the Philippines we don’t have a problem (producing good boxers). Manny Pacquiao, Filipino boxing star

for when it will be built.

When Pacquiao’s plans for China were first announced in 2014, he said that he believed the partnership could help thaw frosty ties between the Philippines and China, who were engaged in a territorial maritime dispute in the South China Sea.

Relations have since improved considerably under current Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. At the time, Pacquiao defended the decision to open a boxing academy in China instead of his own country.

“In the Philippines we don’t have a problem ( producing good boxers),” said Pacquiao, a hero in his home country and also a senator. — AFP