By James Blears
President of the World Boxing Council Jose Sulaiman, is offering a home to Cuba’s amateur boxing stars who want to try their hand in the professional arm of the sport.
This comes as Cuba has announced it won’t be sending a team to the World Boxing Championships this October in Chicago. One of the main reasons, comes from the fallout, following the attempted defection of two Cuban boxers, during the recent Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Guillermo Rigondeaux and Erislandy Lara have since been deported back to Cuba from Brazil, and in spite of them both having been world champions, President Fidel Castro has said they won’t represent their country again.
Cuba, has dazzled the world, with some of the most sensational amateur boxers in history, who’ve won a vast array of Olympic and other championship medals- many gold.
Jose Sulaiman’s plan involves an tripartite agreement between boxers, the Cuban Government and the world of professional boxing.
Don Jose said: “I believe that Cuba must understand the reality of the present times. So I believe that the Cuban Government should open the doors in an orderly and respectable way for Cuba. Not as runaways.
“I offer with all due respect to Cuba, the WBC as a world institution, to give them a home in any country of the world that their boxers go, by extending all legal, humanistic, sport, and medical protection to all those boxers who come out to look for their living in professional boxing. And for a percentage that they agree, to be withheld and sent to Cuba for the sponsorship of training of boxers there.”
Don Jose also insisted: “Fidel Castro was right in saying that the boxers ran away because of the green-the money. But this is modern life. This is a culture which is overpowering all others in the world, unfortunately.
“The fact is that Fidel Castro is trying to defend the greatness of Cuba’s boxing, by keeping a team that is not provoked or attracted to leave for money. I have to respect that. But things are different today.
“The reality is that any person in the world that has the opportunity to make money will try very strongly to do it. And now the Cuban desertions are mounting. So that being the case, Cuba should recognize that modern times are directing the world to go to a different path.
“That is why are very humbly and modestly recommend to the Cuban Government to study the possibility of letting great boxers to go. The authorization to leave, with the condition that there is some institution in the world protecting their rights. And at the same time Cuba gets a part of their income, so Cuba can continue its strong tradition of boxing in the amateur area.”
