Dade Boxing Club & Promotions

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Dade boxing club of La, formed with the aim of helping the youth of the community to develop their sporting talents and make good use of their leisure hours, was on Saturday inaugurated in Accra.

The club, a brainchild of some of the members of the La Community, was born out of the desire to help rid the streets of unemployed youth through introducing them to sporting activities. The occasion was also used to commission a ¢70 million boxing gym equipped with locally manufactured boxing apparatus like gloves, punching bags, head guards , speed balls and a standard boxing ring, the club currently has six amateur boxers and three professional boxers and has employed services of Mr. Ato Fynn, a top ranking boxing coach, a masseur and a nurse.

Commissioning the club, which is the 26th boxing club in Accra, honorable Ebenezer Ako-Nai, Member of Parliament for Dadekotopon, urged all to support the club to bring glory to the people of La. He said he had formed the Dadekotopon sports council to oversee the proper administration of some sporting activities like soccer, table tennis and playing cards in the constituency.

Mr. Ako-Nai urged the club executives not to allow themselves to be bullied by the more established boxing clubs since the community has everything that it takes to survive any form of intimidation from every quarter. He praised the efforts of the founders since it supported the call by the government for private sector participation in sports. The ceremony also saw the swearing into office of a six member executive committee with Mr. Gideon Quartey as Chairman to run the affairs of the club.
Other members of the executives are Mr. Joseph Neequaye, Vice chairman; Charles Okerchiri, Secretary; Emmanuel Odoi, Public relations officer; John Sowah, organizer; and Frank Lamptey, member.

In an interview with GNA Sports, Mr. Joseph Neequaye, Vice chairman was grateful to Mr. Darko, owner of the land on which the gym has been built, for readily putting his property at their disposal. He said Dade boxing club has also registered as a professional boxing promotion syndicate and will come out with its first boxing promotion by February next year.
Mr. Neequaye appealed to companies and institutions to come to the aid of the club by donating equipments for the expansion of the gym to meet the expected increase in the number of members. He said judging from the rate of development of boxers in the fold it will not be long for the club to produce national and world beaters.

There were messages of solidarity from the Ghana Amateur Boxing Association and the Ghana boxing Authority.
There were four exhibition bouts as part of the activities marking the commissioning.
SOURCE: Graphic sports, September 2 – September 4, 2003