Funding for fight a ‘tight call’

The Joseph Parker world heavyweight boxing bout is borderline for government funding, Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce says.

Fight promoters believe they satisfy the need for a partnership with the Government as they look for ways to finance the WBO title fight against Mexico’s Andy Ruiz in Auckland on December 10.

But the promotion is threatened by Duco Events’ abilities to generate the money required to put on the fight against an extremely tight deadline. Duco have an application in for a grant with New Zealand Major Events.

Labour spokesman Trevor Mallard has questioned its worth to New Zealand and Joyce yesterday highlighted the hurdles it would have to meet.

‘‘It’s probably on the border for a number of reasons, but we’ll have a look at it - they’ve put an application in and we treat every application fairly,’’ Joyce said.

‘‘Some of the questions would be, what’s the opportunity to promote New Zealand, and the sort of leverage of New Zealand, and it’s just a short time fame in that respect? It could be tricky.’’

There would also need to be a clear understanding whether it was going to happen anyway, with or without the funding support, and whether it was planned to be a profit-making event.

‘‘We don’t generally support events that are already profitable,’’ he said.

He said the promoters had submitted a budget which officials would look at. There was no express upper limit for how much the fund would pay out, although there was a budgeted amount each year and it was well allocated for the next year or two, ‘‘so there isn’t a huge amount sitting there at the moment’’.

Dean Lonergan of Duco Events told Radio Live they needed a ‘‘significant seven-figure amount’’ to make the fight happen.

Major Events NZ was just one line they are going down, with sponsorship their big ticket.

They have three major sponsors ined up and are probably ‘‘40-50 per cent’’ of the way there, Lonergan said.

Joyce said the idea of the fund was to develop and encourage the development of things that would not otherwise happen in New Zealand.