REPORT DENIED

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31322, 18 March 1967, Page 15

REPORT DENIED

The Wellington Boxing Association has denied “most emphatically” the claims -of the boxing reporter of “The Press” that a number of its executive members had declared they were going to resign over whait they considered to be the unfair decision following the Grant-San-tos Empire title fight in Wellington on Wednesday. The chairman of the Wellington Boxing Association (Mr B. O’Brien) said in a let-

ter to the editor of “The Press”; “All 12 executive members of the association confirm that at no time did they indicate such a course of action; all reaffirm the association’s complete executive unity in the successful promotion and presentation of a contest costing more than £6OOO in a hall holding less than 2000 persons.

“Had your reporter, who appears to have spent more time seeking sensational ‘angles’ than in providing a factual report of what took place in the ring, taken the trouble to put the question even to a solitary member of my executive, he would have been left in no doubt of this whatsoever.

“It appears that he has run across one disgruntled person among the association’s 200 members, as distinct from executive members, and that this person was one who very closely associated himself with the Grant management from the beginning. “I might also add that your reporter errs again when he refers to me as president of the association,” concluded Mr O’Brien. Our boxing reporter replies: A man, wearing a dress suit, came up to him at the ringside after the fight. The man said he was a member of the com mittee of the Wellington Boxing Association and that he was go - ing to resign. He added that some other members would also resign. Questioned, the man said his name was Conville. In the programme, W. G. McConville was named as a member of the association’s management committee. A reporter from another paper was present. Another man who said he was a member of the association said he was going to resign because he was disgusted with the decision.