BSA seeks sponsors

Boxing South Africa chairwoman Muditambi Ravele admits that the sport still needs to do a lot more work to convince corporate South Africa to invest in boxing.

Speaking at the BSA awards nominee announcement in Johannesburg last week‚ Ravele said her team is working around the clock to return boxing to its former glory days and they have been knocking on many companies’ doors.

“We are not happy with the fact that we are not attracting any sponsors‚” she said.

“We need to rebuild our brand and that’s the process we are busy with.”

Unlike their soccer‚ athletics and cricket peers‚ boxers still receive very little recognition and some even fade before their prime.

“The awards are actually one of those activities to encourage sponsors to look at us‚” she said.

“One of the things that we had to look at was to bring more interesting fights in the ring and we’ve managed to do that.

“I mean you look at the current nominees now and you can see that it’s nominees of good quality.

“I think next year‚ our next step should then be to make sure that we repackage boxing and go to the sponsorship industry.”

The awards ceremony will be held at Durban’s International Convention Centre on January 28. — TMG Digital