KARACHI, Sept 12: Sindh Boxing Association (SBA) on Wednesday lashed out at the Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) for sending boxers to Cuba despite failing to produce results after foreign training tours and huge expenditures.

The SBA secretary, Ali Akbar Shah, said the boxers failed to deliver despite being sent to Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Cuba in the past as they gave pathetic performances at the 2004 Athens Olympics and Doha Asian Games last year.

“The boxers have failed despite PBF spending billions of rupees from the grants received from the government. Now the PBF wants to send boxers again to Cuba and wants four million rupees in grant which is simply incomprehensible,” Akbar said in a statement.

The official was of the opinion that when the PBF already had two Cuban coaches receiving salaries in dollars and the federation had been spending millions of rupees on training camps, why was it planning to send the boxers to Cuba for training?

“PBF has the cheek to demand four million rupees from the Ministry of Sports while the concerned authorities, instead of initiating an official inquiry against the PBF chairman, Anwar Chowdhry, are supporting the fedration,” observed the SBA official.

Akbar demanded an inquiry into the poor performances of Pakistani boxers and their foreign trips during the past so many years. He alleged that the billions of rupees provided by the government to PBF were spent on sending favourite officials and boxers on joyrides instead of developing the game at the grassroots level.

The SBA official urged federal sports minister and secretary, National Assembly and Senate Standing Committees on Sports and director-general Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) to order an inquiry against Chowdhry and PBF secretary Shakeel Durrani for corruption and decline of boxing as a sport.

He also demanded the dissolution of PBF and an ad hoc set-up for the body till 2008 Beijing Olympics to save the sport from further destruction.