British boxing may be on the ropes – but it can recover to help mend Broken Britain

Well, it was all down to sliding door moments – and so it was that I was up on the stage last night at the Savoy Hotel, alongside Jim Rosenthal, John Conteh and Martin O’Neill, Three legends and a leg end!

There’s no way of dressing it up … professional boxing in this country is in turmoil. The shadow of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) looms over the sport.

When you have boxers allegedly testing positive for PEDs on the eve of big shows, it is almost a veritable feast for the anti-boxing brigade.

Can the tide be turned? Definitely, but only if the ‘clean’ boxing majority get behind the British Boxing Board of Control and support them in implementing a standard and fail-safe testing programme that every professional boxer in this country signs up to on receipt of their licence.

Did you read? How Brighton owner Tony Bloom helped get Ian Hart to Marseille v the Seagulls.

Let’s have regular testing – fail once and it’s a three-year ban; fail twice and you never fight again – because a clean and vibrant sport, at both amateur and professional level, can help mend Broken Britain.

It’s not just the inner cities affected any more, we've got stabbings and drugs problems in Sussex and beyond.

Proper funding of youth projects, not just boxing, but other sports and the arts, will help get kids off their phones and sofas and taking part in healthy and character-building activities.

In some cases, in boxing and to a lesser degree football, it will move youngsters away from the gang culture that can involve both knife crime and drugs.

Down the years how many people has boxing kept out of prison? By their own admission, even some respected and legendary world champions come into that category.

So how many more youngsters will be kept on the right road if grassroots boxing is funded properly at both youth and amateur level?

Every cause needs figureheads and on Monday night, top BWC awards went to Romford’s Johnny Fisher and Olympic hopeful Delicious Orie (DJ for short).

These two young men, both university graduates, could they be the future of the heavyweight scene and British boxing in general.They’re great role models and individuals that the youth of this country can look up to.

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