Taylor confirmed as Boxing Board chairman

MELCHOIR TAYLOR has been confirmed as chaiman of the new Trinidad and Tobago Boxing Board of Control. Taylor, an official with more than 30 years experience in the sport was handed his letter of appointment on Friday along with nine other members of the Cabinet approved body which controls the sport. The long-awaited naming of the new Boxing Board comes close to five months after the term of office of the last board came to an end. Survivors of that administration were its former interim chairman, Dr Calvin Inalsingh, chairman of the World Boxing Association Medical Committee and Molly Boxhill, the lone female official regarded as a live-wire of the sport.

The others are businessmen Hubert Bhagwansingh and George Hadeed; former San Fernando based boxer Walter Peters; attorney Elton Prescott, honorary secretary-general of the TT Olympic Committee; Ian Walker and Johnny Chai Hong. Taylor, who has been the referee in  two world fights and has travelled extensively around the world as an official, said he gave Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs Roger Boynes the asurance that there will be no infighting under his watch. “Our objective is to get the sport off the ground. We have a lot of plans and there is much to do,” said Taylor yesterday. First meeting of the new board will be on Tuesday at the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs, Duke Street in Port-of-Spain. At that meeting Taylor said members will familiarise themselves with one another and each will be given the opportunity to outline the contribution they expect to make towards the efficient functioning of the Boxing Board of Control.

Taylor said he has already spoken to international match-maker Buxo Potts and Cecil Forde of Richford Promotions and have enlisted their support to get professional cards staged in the local ring soon. Richford have been at loggerheads with the previous administration for more than a year vowing not to stage any local cards until a new board is in place. Potts, on the other hand most recently failed in an attempt to have several top female Guyanese boxers here for the Point Fortin Borough Day card because no board was in place to sanction the card. Taylor said he would like to see the return of boxing to schools and the introduction of a programme for the orphanages, and boxers in the prison system. “Let’s put boxing gloves in their hands instead of guns and we will be fighting the crime and violence problem,” said Taylor.

He described the present state of boxing as the worse he has seen in his 30 years involvement in the sport but praised the Amateur Association for the great strides they have been making in regional and international competitions. He admitted that the Boxing Board Act of 1933 was outdated and needed amending but until then, he said, his board will be guided by the law and counting heavily on the advice of attorney Prescott. Taylor also stood behind the existing law which prohibits the granting of a professional boxing licence to any TT national under the age of 17. The stipulation has come under fire recently from the handlers of Siparia schoolgirl Giselle Salandy who succesfully fought for a regional championship with a Curacao licence after being denied one from her homeland. “I have no probelm with that law. I stand by it,” said Taylor yesterday.