Box­ing pro­mot­er Randy Glas­gow is urg­ing the T&T Box­ing Board of Con­trol (TTB­BC), be­ing led by Bar­ry Ish­mael, to ease the trou­bles box­ers en­counter to re­ceive li­cens­es to be­come pro­fes­sion­al fight­ers in T&T.

Glas­gow ze­roed in specif­i­cal­ly on the po­lice record re­quire­ment which he de­scribed as a huge hin­drance for many po­ten­tial fight­ers at­tempt­ing to emerge from im­pov­er­ished sit­u­a­tions to some­thing sig­nif­i­cant in the world of box­ing.

Glas­gow's call comes amidst fever­ish at­tempts by mem­bers of the Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty to bring an end to the un­want­ed vi­o­lence by en­cour­ag­ing young men to put down their guns and pick up a pair of box­ing gloves.

Glas­gow has been an in­stru­men­tal part of this ini­tia­tive and has come up with the idea of well-known So­ca artistes Trinidad Kil­la (Kern Joseph) and Swap­pi (Mar­vin Davis) en­gag­ing in a box­ing match next month to pro­mote the pos­si­bil­i­ties that young peo­ple from de­pressed ar­eas in T&T may have through sports and through box­ing.

One box­ing of­fi­cial, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said to re­ceive a pro­fes­sion­al box­ing li­cense: "The fight­er goes in­to the Board, present his ID, pho­tos of him­self and a po­lice record. They are al­so asked to fill out a form and pay a fee of $100.

"If the box­er is an am­a­teur now turn­ing a pro­fes­sion­al, then he will be re­quired to walk with a let­ter from his am­a­teur coach out­lin­ing his cre­den­tials."

It is un­sure whether any fight­er in the past has re­ceived dif­fi­cul­ty in get­ting a pro­fes­sion­al box­ing li­cense, but Glas­gow said he made his po­si­tion very clear dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with an of­fi­cial of the TTB­BC on Fri­day.

Ac­cord­ing to Glas­gow: "In dis­cus­sion with the TTB­BC of­fi­cial, with im­me­di­ate ef­fect, they need to re­vise and look at the laws per­tain­ing to the grant­i­ng of box­ing li­cens­es to in­di­vid­u­als.

"One of the re­quire­ments list­ed is that you must have a clean po­lice char­ac­ter or record and all over the world box­ers come from dif­fer­ent back­grounds and so on, so you will hard­ly find some­one who wants to box with a clean per­son­al record like a priest or what­ev­er the case may be.

"So they may need to re­vis­it what qual­i­fies you to get a pro­fes­sion­al box­ing li­cense."

Glas­gow is no stranger to the cri­te­ria need­ed for box­ers to be­come pro­fes­sion­als, hav­ing pro­mot­ed many fights more than 10 years ago. He told Guardian Me­dia Sports on Sun­day, he pulled away from the sport then be­cause of a per­ceived break­down in the sys­tem, where qual­i­ty fight­ers were not be­ing pro­duced to pro­mote.  

His de­ci­sion to work with the Sea Lots box­ing project is not as yet an in­di­ca­tion that he will be re­turn­ing to pro­mo­tion­al box­ing in T&T, as he prefers to take things one step at a time, he said.

He is cur­rent­ly the dri­ving force be­hind arrange­ments to have the Swap­pi/Trinidad Kil­la fight a pay-per-view ini­tia­tive ei­ther in Sea Lots or at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) in Port-of-Spain.

Glas­gow be­lieves an ease for box­ers to re­ceive pro­fes­sion­al li­cens­es will be in the sport's own in­ter­est be­cause of the back­ground of many fight­ers.

He said, "This is very im­por­tant be­cause men box in prison be­cause that's what they learned. So how can you want to box but you can­not get a li­cense be­cause you have a lit­tle record.

"If you want to mend the sit­u­a­tion and en­cour­age box­ing, then you have to look at those things. My word to the TTB­BC is to re­vis­it that and see what can be done to make it eas­i­er for the guys to get a pro­fes­sion­al box­ing li­cense."