Fighters are being “hurt, exploited or forgotten” in a failing system, says former boxer Paul Smith, who has criticised a lack of support for athletes.
Smith is part of a team set up to represent fighters and safeguard their futures, with the group aiming to launch the “biggest ever inquiry into health and safety in combat sport”.
The group, called the Global Fighters’ Association (GFA), wants the inquiry to provide the platform for it to become “the new umbrella organisation for all combat sport”.
It was set up last year with the aim of creating a union to safeguard fighters’ futures.
The GFA says it wants to campaign for fair contracts and better pay, insurance and pensions, proper health and safety standards and somewhere for fighters to report problems to an official channel.
It points to public fundraisers in recent months which have helped fighters such as Lee Reeves pay for emergency care after serious injuries.
Smith, who challenged three times for a super-middleweight world title before his retirement in 2017, says it is a “failing” of the system when fighters like Reeves have to raise money to pay for recovery.
“Every week, somewhere in this sport, a fighter is hurt, exploited or forgotten, and the only safety net is whatever the boxing community can scrape together after the fact,” said Smith.
“That’s not a system. That’s a failing. We are not aware of anyone, ever, who has properly invested the time and resources to get under the bonnet of this sport, work out exactly where it is failing fighters, and publish actionable recommendations to fix it.”
The GFA says it has secured respected barrister Jonathan Caplan KC to lead the process of conducting the inquiry, which will look into the “safety, governance and treatment of combat sports participants at all levels”, from grassroots to professional.
He will be tasked with producing a report back on the evidence and testimonies gathered.
The GFA is a non-profit organisation and is aiming to raise £500,000 to fund the inquiry via a crowdfunding campaign.
Chair designate Simon Bazalgette says the group wants to provide fighters with the same support available to athletes in other sports.
“Over the last decade or so, professional sports such as rugby, football and horse racing have raised their game when it comes to the welfare of the participants,” said Bazalgette.
“It is striking that combat sport is one of the last workplaces with no professional representation for its workers, meaning little protection, no minimum health and safety standard, no independent pension scheme, no insurance floor, and no single body a fighter can turn to when something goes wrong.
“The GFA has been formed to rectify this, to help the sport create a stronger bond of trust with its participants and its audience, and thereby give a stronger foundation for growth.”
Earlier this month, British mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter Michael ‘Venom’ Page urged fighters to form a union to campaign for better pay.
He pointed to the Muhammad Ali Act – a 2000 US law designed to protect boxers’ rights and combat potential monopolies – as something he would like to replicate in MMA.
UFC president Dana White has been spearheading a push to amend the act – a move which GFA acting general secretary Paul Maloney says should cause alarm bells in fighters.
“It’s the one piece of legislation anywhere in the world that gives fighters a level of workplace protection, and it’s currently being rewritten in a way critics say favours the promoters and networks that already hold most of the power,” said Maloney.
“If it can be stripped back there, it can happen anywhere else that lacks its own independent, respected voice for fighters – which is exactly why the GFA exists.”