The first ever British & Irish Boxing Authority conference hosted by the astute boxing personality Gianluca Di Caro who doubles as the Vice President and Chief Executive Officer at BIBA successfully took place at the Effingham Hotel in the United Kingdom.
Aside the initial challenges as with every first time event, the programme was truly educative and enlightening with thought provoking questions and answers.
Guest Speaker, Professor Michael Graham was great with his detailed research thesis and offered a whole range of incisive and research findings. The thematic areas were centred on ‘Anomalies’ – ‘abnormalities’ in the sport of boxing and sports in general.
There were other topical areas which included the use of info scanner, Wilder code, scoring, Inadvertent doping and even combating racial abuse.
World Boxing Union (WBU), Inc. based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA was ably represented there by BIBA licensed referee Adrian Thorne and other big personalities from Kenya, Uganda, India, South Africa, Ghana and so on.
Ghana’s finest and Sports Writers Association of Ghana best referee Roger Barnor was unsong and delivered a nice presentation on the sport of boxing as well as shared some philosophical views on boxers’ safety.
“I prefer to stop a fight early to save a life than to stop it late and lose a life in the process.” Roger articulated as his guiding principle in his over two decades in the centre of the square ring as referee.
There were other topical areas like need for sponsorship, why Info scanner should be mandatory, need to have people checked, head injury, more discretion for referees and other health and safety issues.
The crowning moment is going to be tomorrow, the 27th of April at Lincoln, when Ghana’s Daniel Adjei Sowah comes up against undefeated Nathan Decastro in a championship contest to be officiated by Ghana’s Roger Barnor.