Of­fi­cials of the T&T Am­a­teur Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion (T&TA­BA) are cry­ing foul, since po­lice of­fi­cers de­barred them from host­ing a train­ing ex­er­cise for their ref­er­ees/judges and coach­es and a box-off on Sat­ur­day at Cos­mic Box­ing Gym, St James Street, Bat­too Av­enue, Mara­bel­la. And, in or­der to set­tle the is­sue, along with that of sev­er­al per­sons nom­i­nat­ed to serve on the T&T Box­ing Board of Con­trol (T&TB­BC), the T&TA­BA is will­ing to go to any length, which in­cludes get­ting Prime Min­is­ter, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Min­is­ter of Sport, Anil Roberts, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and Min­is­ter of Jus­tice Her­bert Vol­ney in­volved.

T&TA­BA pres­i­dent, Ce­cil Forde yes­ter­day crit­i­cised the ac­tions of the new board point­ing out it had not yet been giv­en its in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment. Forde not­ed that de­spite this, the board's first act, even be­fore prop­er­ly com­ing in­to of­fice, was to use force to stop a box­ing pro­gramme. Forde was speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence at George Street Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain. He not­ed his board nev­er had to get per­mis­sion from the Box­ing Board to host an am­a­teur box­ing card.

In giv­ing an ac­count of what tran­spired on Sat­ur­day, Forde said around 12.30 pm four po­lice of­fi­cers vis­it­ed Cos­mic Box­ing Gym and in­formed him they re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that a box­ing con­test was to be held at the venue and it was il­le­gal, be­cause they had no per­mis­sion from the Box­ing Board of Con­trol which was nec­es­sary un­der the Act. Forde point­ed out that he ex­plained to the po­lice of­fi­cers that the Am­a­teur Box­ing Board had no of­fi­cial doc­u­ment or any cor­re­spon­dence from the Min­is­ter of Sports, the Min­istry of Sports and Youth Af­fairs or any Gov­ern­ment Agency in­form­ing them that the new Box­ing Board of Con­trol was ap­point­ed.

"And, if this was cor­rect then the chair­man should con­tact us im­me­di­ate­ly and have some di­a­logue with us," stat­ed Forde. "I al­so ex­plained to the of­fi­cers that the present T&TA­BA ex­ec­u­tive has been in place for the past nine years and has nev­er once had to have the ap­proval to host an am­a­teur box­ing card or de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme." In­di­cat­ing that about two hours lat­er a ve­hi­cle was ob­served parked 100 yards from the gym, Forde said the dri­ver, who was try­ing to con­ceal him­self, was tak­ing pic­tures of the ac­tiv­i­ties tak­ing place at the gym. "This per­son turned out to be Boxu Potts. He was al­so talk­ing on a cell phone. In the pas­sen­ger seat was Zaid Mo­hammed. Potts was nom­i­nat­ed as spe­cial ad­vi­sor to the T&TB­BC with Mo­hammed as sec­re­tary.

"Some time lat­er po­lice of­fi­cers re­turned this time with spe­cial forces, ful­ly armed, tak­ing up po­si­tions in front and in­side the gym. There were about 75 young ath­letes present." Ac­cord­ing to Forde, Ag In­spec­tor Ram­per­sad, who head­ed the po­lice par­ty, in­formed mem­bers of the as­so­ci­a­tion that he had re­ceived in­struc­tions from the Min­is­ter of Sports and Youth Af­fairs, Anil Roberts and Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Stephen Williams that no box­ing con­test should be held. "We ac­cept­ed this and the ex­er­cise was can­celled," added Forde. "The T&T Am­a­teur Box­ing Board views this as a vi­cious and un­war­rant­ed at­tack on our or­gan­i­sa­tion," said Forde, "and le­gal ac­tion is be­ing pur­sued."

"Our as­so­ci­a­tion re­peats that we have nev­er had to seek any form of per­mis­sion from the Box­ing Board in our en­tire stew­ard­ship and we strong­ly be­lieve that the 1933 Act does not give the Box­ing Board pow­er over the Am­a­teur Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion, but make them a reg­u­la­tor body in charge of pro­fes­sion­al box­ing." The Am­a­teur As­so­ci­a­tion re­vealed that while the Act gives the Min­is­ter the au­thor­i­ty to ap­point a five-mem­ber Board, eight per­sons have been ap­point­ed to serve. They are: Dr Ken­neth Smith (chair­man), Yaqub Ab­dul-Haqq (vice-chair­man), Ri­car­do Phillip, Dr Keven An­toine, Prince Sam Wor­rell, Shama Stroude, Zaid Mo­hammed and Mala Na­sib to­geth­er with Potts as ad­vi­sor.