ZNBWCB Convenes Stakeholders Consultative Meeting ...

ZNBWCB Convenes Stakeholders Consultative Meeting With Chairperson Committing To Craft Strategic Document That Will Shape Combat Sport In Zim

Copa Coca-Cola confident of successful 30th event | The Chronicle — ZNBWCB Chairperson Vee Chibanda

Gilbert Munetsi

The Zimbabwe National Boxing and Wrestling Control Board on Wednesday, November 2, convened a first stakeholders consultative meeting for the Northern region with an aim to chart a best possible way forward.

This, the regulatory body said, would be done through a strategic document to be compiled from contributions made, into which life will then be breathed.

Held at the National Sports Stadium and presided over by the board chairperson, Vee Chibanda, the meeting was also graced by the Director: Sport and Recreation, Dr Eugenia Chidakwa.

Participants included members from the umbrella combat sport sector which includes boxing, wrestling and mixed martial arts.

“We were appointed in July this year as a new board and to be able to chart a way forward, the only way we can do that is to meet with the stakeholders.

“We believe that we cannot work in isolation and to that effect, we thus decided to introduce ourselves to them first, succeeded by a meeting of minds to understand what the sector means to us and what is it that they (stakeholders) want.

“We are now into the strategy-crafting chapter and need to come up with documents that speak to the needs of the people because our main challenge is to grow the interest of our stakeholders,” Chibanda told Zim Now on the sidelines of the meeting.

The invitation was also extended to clubs, academies, tertiary institutions, the uniformed service, sports delivery services and the media. Also in attendance were former and current boxers, managers, promoters, referees and judges.

Arguably, boxing has over the couple of years grown in leaps and bounds in terms of bringing forth results and gaining popularity, overshadowing football which used to be the most followed sport in Zimbabwe.

Several pugilists holding championships under the banners of the likes of the World Boxing Organisation (Peter Pambeni and Brendon Denes), World Boxing Federation (Charles Manyuchi and Tatenda Biningu), World Alliance Boxing Association (Evans Husavihwevhu) and recently the World Boxing Council (Kudakwashe Chiwandire) have been born.

“We want to make sure that combat sport becomes sustainable in Zimbabwe. And the strategic plan we come up with at the end of this meeting defines areas we are going to focus on. We are looking at the actual skills development… how are we going to ensure that we impart self-sustainability skills to the athletes?

“And at the same time we are seized with the need to establish a benevolent fund to assist our athletes who have retired, are injured or have passed on. It speaks to welfare, health, and funeral assistance.

“Mainly, what we have been saying is that people should get assisted from the time of competition right through to their twilight phase.

“It is a fact that sport needs to be supported and to that effect we are looking at sponsorships and the business aspect of how to develop it so we can inspire the young kids to want to take it as a profession. But we can only be able to do that when we embrace professionalism, transparency and all the other attributes that contribute to the makings of an attractive entity,” Chibanda said.

Though there have been challenges in the past with regards to previous boards, the board chairperson paid tribute to her predecessors saying,

“We had previous boards that were there before us. We are here because we stand on the shoulders of these giants who started to administer the sport, some of them long before us. We can only progress when we appreciate the work that they did to grow boxing.

“The structure of the boxing board has changed. We are now a properly constituted public entity with structures from a policy perspective to a secretariat that runs the day to day affairs of the sport. That means boxing and wrestling are now being managed, and they have a board that makes sure we are now moving in the right direction.”