PBF wants to hire Cuban coach, seeks govt funding

KARACHI: Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) wants to hire a Cuban coach to prepare the country’s top lot for the international assignments until the first quarter of 2023.

“I discussed this issue with the Cuban Boxing Federation (FCB) president during the Tokyo Olympics,” PBF secretary Col Nasir Tung told ‘The News’ in an interview on Monday. “He promised me that they would help us in hiring a Cuban coach,” he added.

Nasir, who served as secretary and admin officer of Pakistan’s contingent during the Tokyo Olympics, said the PBF could not hire the coach without government funding. “Without state help it will not be possible for the PBF to meet the high demands of a foreign coach. The government will have to help us,” he said.

Nasir said that the Cuban coach would help Pakistan’s boxers to prepare for the loads of international events in the coming two years. “We have to compete in Asian Games, Commonwealth Games and also Pakistan will host the South Asian Games in early 2023. We will also field our boxers in every Asian level championships during this period,” Nasir said.

He said that they wanted to hold a camp after the National Championship later this year. “At the end of September or early October we plan to hold the National Championship. We will issue a circular soon. We will shortlist three top boxers in each weight category. We want to put 39 male and 21 female boxers in the camp which will be supervised by at least six coaches in Lahore,” Nasir said. “And we have also planned to hold an inter-departmental event which will carry seven departments and a team from the PBF which will be formed of boxers from provinces and Islamabad. This event will be held after every two or two and a half months which will help us find good stuff,” Nasir revealed.

“These events will be organised by departments on rotation basis and the PBF will also hold one,” he said. “After the National Championship we will hold an inter-departmental event before the end of this year and boxers selected from the national event and from this event will be prepared for the Commonwealth Games to be held in Birmingham,” Nasir said.

“We wanted activities but due to Covid we could not do anything. We had to cancel the National Championship three times. I hope the virus comes under control soon and we are able to hold the national event with ease,” he said.

He said that Pakistani boxers based in other countries had also started taking interest in representing their homeland. “There are several boxers who want to play for Pakistan. There are two boxers from England in the welterweight and flyweight category, one from Australia and one from the US. I have told them that they would have to play in our national event and if they impressed the selectors we would pick them to represent Pakistan,” Nasir said.

He said that the country’s premier boxer Mohammad Waseem would be fully supported if he wanted to play in the 2024 Paris Olympics. “Why not? He is an experienced boxer and if he wants to play in the Olympics we will help him and try to give him some foreign training tours as we have already talked to several countries about that. We will need state help also,” Nasir said.

“We have now more weights and Waseem will be warmly welcomed,” he added. AIBA recently increased the number of weights in the men’s category from ten to 13 and added three weights for women’s contests, making it ten.

Waseem recently told ‘The News’ in an interview that he wanted to win a medal for Pakistan in the 2024 Paris Olympics. He intends to switch back to amatuer boxing after winning the world title shot which is expected to be held in the next few months.

Nasir also made it clear that AIBA had never suspended PBF. “No, we are with the AIBA and the world body has not suspended us. It’s not right that some people say that the PBF is suspended. We recently even wanted to send a healthy pool of boxers to the Asian Championship in Dubai but could not do so due to flights issue,” he said.