Corners will have spit buckets, when boxing returns in the UK behind closed doors, after some were confused by a “no spitting” rule in guidelines sent by the British Board of Control (BBBC) to promoters this week.
The BBBC sent out a consultation document on Tuesday, designed to give guidance to promoters planning on putting on behind-closed-doors shows when it is deemed safe to do so.
The guidelines include limiting shows to five bouts, testing all those attending for COVID-19, banning ring card girls and ring announcers, limiting the number of seconds, who must all wear masks.
There was also a rule about no spitting, with some taking to social media to say that there would be no spit buckets in the corners, a line that was followed up by some media organisations. But Robert Smith, general secretary of the BBBC, insisted this would not be the case.
“We will have in place in the corners a utensil so boxers can take refreshments gargle and spit into a bucket, which will be covered,” Smith said. “Each corner will have a utensil for each boxer, which will be taken away and sterilised after it is used.
“What we don’t want is boxers spitting in the middle of the ring, while they are boxing, which does happen. It is a similar thing with football stopping players from spitting on the pitch. We know we can’t stop it completely, but we want to minimise it.”
Guidelines include coronavirus testing for all of those attending, while those deemed at high risk, including the over-70s and anyone pregnant, would not be allowed to attend.
Early shows would be unlikely to include any title fights to both minimise the number of officials required and because of the difficulty in carrying out check weigh-in protocols.
“It is a consultation document sent to out promoters,” Smith said. “Most of our promoters are not going to be able to go behind closed doors, but we put in place measures so that when we can get running, hopefully in July or August, we have things in place. Things are changing every day, we are looking to get opinions and ideas from promoters, so it is a moving document, things will change as conditions change.
“We have said no championships to begin with, mainly because of the check weigh-in procedure that needs to be in place, although if it was heavyweight that would not be a problem. Also our thinking is that the first championship bouts would be domestic, because if we are talking world title fights, we would need to bring in officials from overseas as well as boxers, so that could be difficult. We will adapt as well as we can.”
No venues have been chosen so far, although most talk has been about staging the contests at television studios.