Ninvalle off to AIBA Congress

President of the Guyana Boxing Association (GBA), Steve Ninvalle, will champion the case for funding of the Inter Guiana and the Caribbean schoolboys and juniors boxing tournaments when he attends the three-day International Boxing Association (AIBA) Congress in Switzerland from Monday.

Both tournaments will be held here next year.

The schoolboys and juniors tournament is tentatively scheduled for April while the Inter Guiana fixture will be staged sometime in August.

Ninvalle, who departed for the meeting yesterday, said that he was hopeful of a favourable response from the governing body of amateur boxing which has 200 member federations.

Before departure, the AIBA Executive Committee member said, “a number of issues will be on the table” when the meeting gets underway.

One of which is the possible return of India’s full membership to AIBA.

“India has provisional membership because they were banned, so that is something that we will have to vote on,” he said.

AIBA will also be hosting the 70th anniversary gala ball on Tuesday of which Ninvalle will be attending.

Ninvalle also told this publication that “AIBA has already said that St Lucia will be holding the third Caribbean Development Boxing Tournament (CDBT) next year and the body has offered to assist with funding for that. It is the first time that they will be offering funding for that tournament.”

The inaugural CDBT was staged in Guyana while the second edition concluded a week ago in Barbados.

In 2014, Ninvalle became the first person from the Caribbean to be elected to AIBA’s Executive Committee.