Promotion of Female Participation in Boxing Advocated

By Andrew Nortey

A member of the Ghana Boxing Authority (GBA), Carl Lokko, is advocating the promotion of female participation in boxing, insisting that could be the new era to win medals for Ghana in the sport.

With laurels in amateur and professional boxing now hard to come by in Ghana, the Bronx gym Head Coach believes it was time the nation support women to delve into the area where other countries are already reaping benefits.

Speaking to the Times Sports yesterday on his return from the UK where he signed a deal for the Bronx gym at Akoto Lante in Accra, Coach Lokko intimated that female boxing has come up strongly and has opened many opportunities for women in some advanced countries.

Ghana currently boasts of a few female boxers and a single official - Amerley Turkson who doubles as an amateur referee and a professional coach at the Wisdom Boxing gym.

But that, according to the GBA officials, is not the case in the advanced countries where there they boast of an encouraging number of female boxers, referees and coaches.

"As Ghana now struggles to win titles at the professional ranks and the Black Bombers (amateur national team) failing to replicate the feat achieved by their predecessors, we have to explore other avenues like female boxing."

"The authorities must put in place the needed structures to encourage more women to desire to make careers in boxing. Women can join as boxers, referees, trainers and in other capacities."

According to Coach Lokko, the few ladies that are boxing have shown incredible skills and believe that when more are encouraged, Ghana will soon get a world champion.

He challenged the various boxing gyms to recruit female pugilists as well as referees and trainers while urging the authorities to put in place structures to create competitive platforms for them to compete.

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