There is clearly light at the end of the tunnel for Indian boxing after months of ‘will it happen’, ‘will it not’. The decks are being cleared for the formation of a new boxing body – Boxing Federation of India. The country’s boxers have been slogging it out sans a federation since September 2015 when the world body – AIBA slapped a provisional suspension on Boxing India with large-scale bickering among the state units.
AIBA had constituted an ad-hock committee to identify an entity and the Kishen Narsi-headed committee has managed to hammer out a workable solution through a slew of meetings with boxing stakeholders in the country. Be it meeting the SAI officials or the state units, Narsi and his five-member committee quietly worked behind the scenes to install a federation.
The search for a federation has been on a war footing ever since the AIBA announced May 14 as a cut-off date for India to have a federation in place. In fact, the world body has given an extension to its stipulated time frame after the Indian authorities request them to give them some more time or else the country could face the prospect of being barred from the Rio Olympics.
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Boxing stakeholders have decided on May 8 as the election date, which may be put off by a week or so as the Boxing Federation of India has to secure recognition of the government and IOA before they can kick off the election process.
It has to be understood that the new federation cannot raise any money from the state units or from any other quarter unless they have the government and IOA recognition. Holding an election will have its own share of expenses and without government and IOA recognition, BFI cannot fast-track its process.
There may be some teething things that still requires to be sorted out but there is no denying the fact that the new body coming on board appears to be a ‘matter of time’ thing only.
