The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is said to have tried his hands at boxing at the early stages of his life and as a result, has an enormous love for the sport.
The president has on a number of occasions spoken about his profound admiration for boxers and his readiness to support the drive by Ghanaian boxing authorities to restore the glory days of Ghanaian boxing.
The president has shown that his constant assurances are not mere rhetorics and that he is ready to back them up with actions as he indicated when he agreed to part with more than 30, 000 dollars to have the bout between Isaac Dogboe and Javier Chacon staged in Ghana.
The Chief Executive Officer of Royal Storm Promotions and father of current WBO Super Bantamweight champion, Paul Dogboe has revealed how the president funded Isaac Dogboe’s fight against Javier Chacon despite receiving a late notice of the difficulty Paul Dogboe and team were facing in raising money to have the fight staged in the country”.
Paul Dogboe recounts that “the Chacon fight, we were depending on some key people to sponsor us but it didn’t happen. My marketing people were telling me, they gonna do it, they gonna do it but a day before the fight, nothing had happened. Chacon was in town, we paid for about five people all over the world to come. We paid for their hotel and we paid for the show, the show is on. Now the 30, 000 dollars to pay Chacon wasn’t here”.
“So I went to Papa Jay (Jerry John Rawlings) and I said to him, Papa I’m messed up. The Chacon fight we have to pay the opponent 35,000 dollars, how are we going to do it. So Papa Jay asked someone to take us to the president. So we went there and then Nana Akufo-Addo paid for Chacon and tickets for the other guys. That was like a relief. So that was how the Chacon fight came about”, he said.
With the financial hurdle out of the way, Dogboe and his team switched attention to the bout. It was therefore not surprising when Dogboe gave the Argentine boxer a round-seven knockout.
Dogboe since that bout has gone on to beat Casar Juarez and Jessi Magdaleno to win the WBO bantamweight champion belt.
Isaac Dogboe will take on Japanese boxer Hindero Otake on Saturday night and it is safe to assume that he has the backing of President Akufo-Addo and the entire country.
