An­drew Gioan­net­ti

Pro­mot­er Gio­van­ni Potts yes­ter­day an­nounced that his De­cem­ber 26, $1.9 mil­lion box­ing card has been post­poned.Potts, son of Boxu Potts, spe­cial ad­vi­sor of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Box­ing Board to the Min­istry of Sport, said ad­verse pub­lic­i­ty has led to sev­er­al of his main spon­sors pulling out of the event leav­ing him with no op­tion but to post­pone it.He iden­ti­fied Ma Pau, Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board, Petrotrin, Hi-Lo and Ex­tra Foods as some of the po­ten­tial spon­sors.The event, which was be­ing pro­mot­ed un­der the Uni­fied Box­ing Pro­mo­tion la­bel, has been plagued by con­tro­ver­sy with the Min­istry of Sport deny­ing re­ports that it had ap­proved fund­ing for the card, al­though chair­man of the T&T Box­ing Board Annabelle Davis claimed that the card was ap­proved by the Board un­der its vice-chair­man Zaid Mo­hammed.

At a me­dia con­fer­ence held at Ali­cia's Palace, La­dy Chan­cel­lor Hill, yes­ter­day, Potts said re­ports which were pub­lished in the Guardian and which sug­gest­ed his card may have been ap­proved by the Min­istry for fund­ing, has seen him be­come a tar­get. "Since the pub­lish­ing of the ar­ti­cle, I have be­come a tar­get. I have three chil­dren. Peo­ple have been ask­ing (in hu­mor) if they can have some of the $1.9 mil­lion," said Potts.He de­scribed the re­ports as "ir­re­spon­si­ble" and sug­gest­ed that it was based on in­for­ma­tion from a for­mer board mem­ber, Ri­car­do Phillip, who was re­lieved of his post and has since sent a let­ter to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, chal­leng­ing a num­ber of de­ci­sions rel­a­tive to the card.Potts said the right thing for the re­porter to do was to con­tact him.His fa­ther Boxu, de­scribed the in­for­ma­tion as false. "Phillip set her (the re­porter) up! The in­for­ma­tion pub­lished was false. Phillip brought this in­to a me­dia cir­cus," said Potts.

Phillip and three mem­bers of the board in­clud­ing its chair­man Yaqub Ab­dul Haqq, Janet Den­nis and Mala Na­sib were re­lieved of their du­ties last week, with the se­nior Potts claim­ing that Min­is­ter Anil Roberts was dis­sat­is­fied with their per­for­mances.On Mon­day, per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Sport, Ash­win Creed, an­nounced a six-month sus­pen­sion on pro­fes­sion­al box­ing as his min­istry at­tempts to deal with its con­tentious na­ture with­in re­cent months.Creed re­vealed that pro­fes­sion­al box­ing will not be re­ceiv­ing fund­ing for six months and em­pha­sis will be placed on the de­vel­op­ment of the sport at am­a­teur lev­el.