Grassroots boxing’s ludicrous lack of funding will damage sport

While Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua sit at the top of the boxing food chain, earning millions of pounds for their exploits during an era of defining heavyweight fights, spare a thought for the 1,055 grassroots community boxing clubs in the country which have zero funding.

Zilch for 150,000 participants and 5,000 coaches, effectively now rendered volunteers. Nearly all those involved in boxing have seen the exponential benefits, with many lives changing drastically for the good.

There is good reason, then, for 25 MPs and members of the Lords to highlight this oversight in funding as part of an All Party Parliamentary Group. Two reports from Westminster from a leading lecturer in criminology revealed that 90 per cent of these clubs are to be found in the country’s poorest, most deprived areas.

Of course, professional boxing is one thing. It is a business with fees based on fan appetite, hype, and market appeal. But it is worth remembering that almost every star in boxing began at a grassroots club, many of them at a very young age, and many of them finding their way in life for the better as a result of it.

Reports and research show overwhelmingly that positive impact is not just anecdotal. That ought to bring favour and support for community boxing clubs and its volunteers. It’s a no-brainer.

At a meeting of the APPG at Portcullis House earlier this week, several community boxing clubs and their young participants were told by Imran Hussain, the Labour MP for Bradford East, who chairs the APPG, that the influencers in parliament resoundingly believe there “should be money allocated within the [Government’s] sports strategy.”

At present, the zero mark is frankly ludicrous. MP Hussain and his colleagues are looking to shake up several fronts to support a sea change: government, the professional arm of boxing, and match-funding.

Under-funding is nothing new, but it needs highlighting. In the rescue package for sports in 2020, due to restrictions in crowd attendances because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Eddie Hearn, speaking to The Telegraph, accused Nigel Huddleston and Oliver Dowden, then Sports Minister and Culture Secretary respectively, of being “detached from reality” after his sport received no funding in the Government’s £300 million rescue package. 

In total, 11 sports in England had been named as the beneficiaries of the Sports Winter Survival Package, which was designed to help those impacted by the absence of spectators because of coronavirus. Yet boxing’s barren funding at the grassroots and community level continues, in spite of obvious benefits.

Hussain said that whatever Government runs the country, it will be pursued to add grassroots boxing to the sports strategy, while adding that there should be responsibility at all levels of boxing. Indeed, Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing has a community outreach programme already, and attended the APPG on boxing. As Hussain outlined “the first step is to get the government to agree to add grassroots boxing to the sports strategy which it should do”, but Hussain admitted that there is “a nervousness” from the government where boxing is concerned. A stigma, perhaps.

“Certainly what I’ve seen is a huge nervousness. However, we have to make a distinction, there are tragically unregulated parts of boxing where we need further regulation where even I and the APPG have been pushing in particular areas of white collar boxing, for example, where we need proper regulation, because safety has to come first, and there can’t be a compromise on safety,” he explained. “But it is at the grassroots boxing and in particular the community gyms where I’m focusing, where the APPG’s focus, are completely separate to that. They are about development in young people like I said before, giving confidence to young people working properly in partnership with other agencies as community hubs. We know their impact.”

Indeed, Aveon Perryman, head of operations for England Boxing, told Telegraph Sport that there is “real life magic dust” in these clubs, overseen by “caring coaches, who have seen the same life themselves that young people are going through”. Perryman outlined that “90 per cent” of these clubs are in dire need of financial help. Quantitative research is ongoing from Perryman and with Dr Deborah Jump, a senior lecturer in Criminology from Manchester Met University, and the findings ought to be compelling. The last research was done nine years ago, but more recent data into crime, health, fitness, education - “social capital”, as Jump puts it – will aim to document that boxing has a positive impact in these areas, stops gang involvement, builds positive relationships and has a positive impact on mental health.

As Lord Addington implored an audience of coaches and young boxers from several community boxing gyms at the APPG meeting: “tell us what you need, and we will seek to get that for you”. It is now or never. Woulda, shoulda, coulda has been said by too many in boxing. Now is the time to change that.