Tanzanian boxer stripped of African title after three days
Tanzanian boxer Tony Rashid has been stripped of the title by the African Boxing Union (ABU). PHOTO | COURTESY
What you need to know:
- After reviewing the score cards, it was discovered that the ring announcer read the wrong result in favour of the Tanzanian boxer
Dar es Salaam. The African Boxing Union (ABU) has made a clarification about its decision to strip Tanzanian boxer Tony Rashid of the bantamweight title. Rashid was declared the winner on points over Sabelo Ngebinyana of South Africa on February 24, this year.
However, ABU received complaints from the South African boxer’s management and some officials, who supervised the bout and ordered for the review of the 12-round title fight held at the Ubungo Plaza in Dar es Salaam.
The fight, which was officiated by Ugandan female referee Irene Semakula, was declared the main event after the cancellation of the ABU super middleweight bout between Selemani Kidunda and Patrick Makala of the DR Congo.
Speaking with The Citizen yesterday, ABU’s representative in the country, John Chagu, said he had received a call from the African professional boxing governing body (ABU) president Houcine Houichi, who ordered a review of the result. Chagu said after having reviewed the score cards, they found out that the ring announcer read a wrong result in favour of the Tanzanian boxer.
“I informed Houichi about that and announced to strip Rashid of the title and instead declared Ngebinyama as the winner. Basically, only one judge declared Rashid as the winner while each of the other two judges scored 115-113 for the South African.
What happened was actually not good for the country’s professional boxing health. This incident might cause mistrust for our officials,” said Chagu.
He said after the fight, famous referee Ally “Champion” Bakari, who was one of the judges, complained to him that the ring announcer read a wrong result against what they had actually scored in the contest supervised by the Tanzania Professional Boxing Regulatory Commission (TPBRC).
According to Chagu, a Kenyan judge scored 115-113 for Rashid. “When the president of ABU had noted a problem, after explaining the truth to him, at the same time he annulled the victory of Tony Rashid and instead the South African boxer was awarded the title belt,” said Chagu.
TPBRC president Chaurembo Palasa admitted that a mistake was made, saying it was a human error.
“It is a human error, but we have rectified that as per the score cards,” said Palasa.
