The T&T Box­ing Board of Con­trol on Wednes­day an­nounced that it will be host­ing a five-year Strate­gic Plan­ning Con­fer­ence, at the Crown Plaza Ho­tel Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain on Fri­day and Sat­ur­day next week. The move is an ef­fort to bring all con­tact sports such as kick box­ing and mixed mar­tial arts un­der one body. Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence at the au­dio vi­su­al room at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Port-of-Spain, spe­cial ad­vis­er to the T&T Box­ing Board, Buxo Potts in­di­cat­ed that the ini­tia­tive is to pro­tect the dif­fer­ent con­tact sport­ing as­so­ci­a­tions. "We are not try­ing to take con­trol of any­body. We are more pro­tect­ing them, bring­ing them un­der one um­brel­la, each of them are free to pro­mote their shows they are free to ap­ply for per­mis­sion and I don't see any one ap­ply­ing for shows that wouldn't be giv­en, so long that the match­es are even and the re­quire­ment are met and grade of fight­ers." Chair­man of the T&T Box­ing Board of con­trol Annabelle Davis al­so an­nounced that there was no bud­get planned for the five-year pe­ri­od. "We can on­ly es­ti­mate the bud­get when we have the de­vel­op­men­tal plan. I'll try to speak to the PS (Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary) but he's de­ter­mined to wait on the de­vel­op­men­tal plan it­self be­fore we can dis­cuss the bud­get."

Davis al­so gave her hope­ful re­marks for cor­po­rate Trinidad to take in­ter­est. "I want to be mind­ful of the fact that sport brings na­tion­al pride to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, as a re­sult of which we should not be so de­pen­dent as we are for fund­ing to come out of the min­istry. I hope when we have a de­vel­op­men­tal plan that speaks of strat­e­gy and in­fra­struc­ture, we could in­clude cor­po­rate spon­sors. I am hope­ful that they will come on board now that there is a great deal of uni­ty." Davis al­so com­mend­ed the box­ing board which will soon be im­ple­ment­ing box­ing in the pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school syl­labus. "I think Buxo has been do­ing an ex­cel­lent job of meet­ing and speak­ing with prin­ci­pals. We have been to every school and speak­ing with teach­ers, stu­dents and par­ents to change the mind set of box­ing from be­ing a very dan­ger­ous sport." The Board al­so an­nounced that com­ing out of the D'Abadie/O'Meara pi­lot acad­e­my, there are now two coach­es, three ref­er­ees and judges and five box­ing of­fi­cials who would be im­ple­ment­ed in­to the schools box­ing pro­gramme. Potts al­so an­nounced that for the first time in 50 years, box­ing did not have a home. He said it was re­cent­ly award­ed the Lystra Lewis room at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um which would be its new of­fice. He al­so hint­ed that a re­quest will be made for five acres of land in Cou­va which would be used as the Na­tion­al Box­ing Cen­tre.