Nigeria Content Online

For
boxing to take back its pride of place in Nigeria there is the need to
promote and revive the sport at the grassroots, veteran Coach Paul
Onwuachi, also known as Whitehorse, has said

Whitehorse blamed
the performance of the boxers who went to the Commonwealth games in
Delhi on neglect of sports at the grassroots.

“If the fighters
had attended tournaments and had opportunities to fight in numerous
bouts before-hand, they would have done us proud but as the case is,
most the boys may have just been involved in three or four tournaments
and then they would say that they are ready to fight. It is not done
like that”.

Going back to the basics

The coach who has over 40 years experience in the sport called on the Boxing Federation to go back to the grassroots.

“There is the need
for us to go down so we can come up. In the 70’s there was the school’s
sport from where we could catch the talents young but now it is no
longer like that.

“We are complaining
about the performances of our boxers in Delhi but one thing we forget
is that we had four years to prepare for this tournament but we did not
capitalise on it. Instead we waited until the last minute before we
started to prepare”.

He further went on to say that a lack of exposure to tournaments affected the boxers.

“How many boxing
tournament are organised within Nigeria not to talk of taking these
boxers outside to compete with other people?

If in each title
level within Nigeria one person is able to come from each state to
compete with others you know he has more people to compete against and
when at the end he emerges champion, you will know he is worthy to be
called a champion”.

Patience is key

On the way forward,
the coach who has trained the likes of Bash Ali advised that the sports
ministry should go back to the grassroots and pick talents. “We should
not always wait until there is a big tournament before we start to run
around. This fire brigade approach has not helped our sports to
develop”.

He also advised that monetary gains and short term gains should be shelved for the future gains.

“We should not just be thinking about the money we can get. Most
boxing promoters want to spend N20, 000 now and make two million
immediately but that is not going to happen. When we get our acts
right, Nigeria will then become one of the places where sports could
become very lucrative.”