Young trainers a must to boost Pak boxing: Waseem

KARACHI: Pakistan’s professional boxer and former two-time WBC flyweight world silver champion Mohammad Waseem on Friday urged Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) to bring in young trainers if it wanted to improve boxing in the country.

“It’s really shocking that still our young talent is being imparted training by those who played boxing in the 1970s and 1980s. Boxing has changed a lot and we need young trainers who could bring in new methods and prepare better stuff for future,” Waseem told ‘The News’ in an interview from Islamabad.

“It’s time to kick the old and outdated methods of coaching out,” Waseem stressed.He said Pakistan had abundance of young boxers who had retired. Those with coaching caliber should be sent abroad for coaching education, he added.

He said WAPDA’s Tariq Siddiqui was the best coach in Pakistan but he was not being given chance to prepare the national lot. “I have seen in America that young coaches are being given chances to train the cream of the country. Floyd Mayweather Junior takes keen interest in guiding young trainers,” he said.

Waseem said that PBF did not know how to identify the talent. “Every national champion cannot click in international circuit. Playing in international circuit successfully needs big heart and temperament. The lot which PBF had sent to Asian Games this year lacked courage. I have trained with almost every one of them. The federation should note this thing,” he said.

He also demanded that Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) and PBF remove the non-technical people running the Balochistan Boxing Association (BBA).“Balochistan is the hub of boxing but the BBA is wasting talent. The association’s president and secretary don’t know boxing. They favour those boxers who are close to them and ignore the real talent. I visited several gyms during my one and a half month stay in Balochistan; nobody was happy with the association,” he said.

Waseem, who turned pro in early 2015, won several medals for Pakistan in the amateur circuit, including a bronze in the Asian Games and a silver and a bronze in the Commonwealth Games.

After him, no Pakistani boxer has been able to win any medal in international circuit. Pakistan mostly relied on Waseem for no less than a decade.About Pakistan’s possible Olympics return, Waseem said the country would only return to Olympic fold if it provided quality training to its leading boxers.

“If the PBF wants to see its boxers return to Olympics it will have to work professionally. Currently I don’t see anything positive is being done for promotion of boxing,” Waseem said.He said he saw a bunch of boxers in Balochistan recently and he firmly believed that they were much better than those currently representing Pakistan.

About his own future plans, the Quetta-born boxer said that he would soon give good news. “Once my contract issue with Andy Kim is resolved I will start working with some other promoter. I have offers from Japan and England and will weigh which way I should go,” the fighter said.

Waseem became the WBC flyweight world silver champion in only his fourth pro bout. He also remained World No1 for some time before losing the spot when he failed to play a fight for defending his crown due to financial issues.Last summer he lost his IBF world title bout to Moruti Mthalane of South Africa in Kuala Lumpur.