Yossef Al-Baidhani, 3rd place-63.5 Kg category [Archives:2000/27/Sports]

Sport federations are supposed to improve sports, provide qualified coaches, trainers and all possible training equipment for trainers. Unfortunately, the Boxing Federation is not like that. Its only concern seems to be gathering boxers from all over the country and organizing a championship once a year ostensibly to enable its chairman to travel to any Arab or foreign country.
Just think of a Boxing Federation that has no boxing ring, no training halls, no gloves. Everything is disappointing and discouraging. It is our love for this game that has stimulated us to continue for more than 8 years in such a condition. Former Federations did not get any kind of funding from the Ministry except a paltry sum barely enough to organize the Republic Championship which is held once a year. Ironically, when funding was granted during the past two years by the Youths’ Fund, the condition worsened. For example, the team was selected after the Republic Championship held in Aden. Things were done rapidly. A week-long training camp in Sana’a was organized in very difficult circumstances. The equipment needed for training was brought by the team members themselves.
In addition, the officials of the federation were conspicuous by their absence most of the time. The chairman visited us only occasionally for not more than 5 minutes at a time. What is worse is that, during the stressful training week, we had to finalize our traveling formalities with the Immigration and Passports authority by ourselves, things which were supposed to be taken care of by the Federation itself.
As far as our participation in Cairo is concerned, we arrived there without uniform and gloves. We had to borrow the gloves and clothes from other Arab participants. We felt ashamed of ourselves and humiliated, too. I wonder what the responsibility of the chairman of the Federation was.

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