Ninvalle off to AIBA’s Congress

Steve Ninvalle, Executive Committee member of the International Boxing Association’s (AIBA) will be the Caribbean’s voice at its three-day Congress starting today in Doha, Qatar.

Ninvalle, who is also the president of the Guyana Boxing Association, yesterday disclosed some of the topics he intends to discuss with AIBA’s other executive members on behalf of the region.

“I will of course be looking at what is beneficiary to the Caribbean nations,” he said.

Steve Ninvalle
Steve Ninvalle

“I plan to discuss with them support for the CARICOM region and possible support for our 10-nation tournament that we have planned later this year.

“Through those discussions, we will know our footing going forward.”

Ninvalle was elected to the executive committee when AIBA held its

2014 Congress in Jeju, Korea last November.

He said he plans to broach the idea of Caribbean boxers attending qualifying tournaments closer to the region as opposed to further afield.

“There are a lot of qualifying tournaments that are held in far-flung regions like Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan and it is quite costly for us as Caribbean nations to send our boxers there, so we will want to resolve that and see if we can compete in qualifying tournaments that are quite closer to us.

“This is my first Congress and we just hope that the Caribbean can come out with something tangible from this. It is good to know that for the first time that CARICOM will have a representative at an Executive Meeting.”