The President of the Ghana Boxing Promoters Association, who doubles as the CEO of Box Office Sports Promotions has in a long statement shared his view regarding the purse percentage deduction by the Ghana Boxing Authority, explaining how the charges are applied, where it applies and the illegality of its application at some point.
Take a read of his input below
This purse percentage issue is only attributed to Ghanaian boxers fighting out of the United States but I don’t recall any boxer refusing to pay percentage whereby a boxer has been released to fight outside the country.
Boxers have paid as high as 5% to the GBA from fighting outside the jurisdiction as Ghanaian licensed boxers who had been issued with GBA release letters.
The issue is about the boxers fighting in the US of which the boxers has to pay as high as 30% tax to the US government.
All foreign boxers fighting in the US (including Ghanaian boxers) would need to be licensed by the very State they would fight in and therefore subject to tax payment to the US government. These boxers would not need to be fighting under their home country license which makes the GBA rule on the payment of percentage purse inapplicable.
We even have an examples like Lee McAllister who is a Scottish but fighting on a GBA license, he fought and won a Ghanaian national championship and has to pay his purse percentage to the GBA, he recently fought here in Ghana and won the WBO International Super Welterweight Championship and same he has paid his percentage purse to the GBA. The GBA should be monitoring him if he fights anywhere in the world except the US which have different arrangements to collect their percentage purse.
We also have a typical example of a Tanzania boxer with the name Lorent Japhet who is being managed by a board member of the GBA (John Marfo) and licensed with the GBA, Japhet was the last boxer to win the best boxer on the Deluxy Boxing League, when he fights he pays his purse percentage to the GBA and pays nothing to the Tanzanian Boxing Commission.
The GBA in an attempt to chase the purse percentage from Ghanaian boxers fighting in the US appointed Peter Kahn – advisor for Emmanuel Tagoe as a board member for International Relations, Peter had his boxer Emmanuel Tagoe fought but failed to deduct the purse percentage to pay same to the GBA, this is due to the reason of inapplicable of the rule of the GBA to boxers who are not fighting on GBA license and so it’s inapplicable to Emmanuel Tagoe, if Tagoe or any other boxer agrees to pay then it’s out of his own will and love but not obligatory.
The undertaking drafted by the GBA is a subtle way to commit boxers to have an obligation to pay a purse percentage to the GBA even if they are not fighting under license of the GBA and that is unlawful according to the GBA own rules.
I believe the GBA under the leadership of Abraham Kotei Neequaye should understand the rules and shun from creating feuds between the GBA and the boxers which at the end creates negative image for the fraternity.
The focus is to create a reciprocal relationship with US boxers who would fight in Ghana in the future.