Team Isaac Dogboe left in financial distress

Isaac Dogboe’s years of hard work and ambition of winning a world tittle may have been achieved in a grand style a few days ago, but the excitement about winning the WBO Interim Super Bantamweight crown and an opportunity to face the WBO champion, Jessie Magdaleno, later this year to unify the titles, appear to have been dampened by huge financial challenges the Dogboe camp has to grapple with.

Winning the purse bid to stage the January 6 title fight with Mexican Cesar Juarez at the Bukom Boxing Arena gave Dogboe a good springboard to fulfil a lifelong ambition, but the home advantage came at a huge cost to the Rising Star Africa Promotions, the Graphic Sports has learned.

According to Dogboe, his joy at becoming the youngest ever world champion from Ghana has been somewhat dampened by the challenges his father and trainer, Paul, in particular, has to face to clear huge debts incurred after investing close to $500,000 to stage the fight in Accra.

In an interview, Paul Dogboe, founder of Rising Star Africa Promotions told the Graphic Sports that the team paid $117,000 as purse bid to the WBO to confirm their readiness to stage the fight in Accra, in addition to doling out $18,000 as sanctioning fee for the fight.

The promotions company also paid for accommodation and flight tickets of all WBO officials that came to watch the fight: American referee Tony Weeks and the three judges -- Fernando Laguna (Spain), Matteo Montella (Italy) and South Africa's Deon Dwarte.

Paul told the Graphic Sports in an interview that clearing the debts was a big headache as he had to go round knocking on the doors of corporate bodies and other benefactors for help.

He added that winning a world title came at a huge cost and it was about time the state intervened by underwriting some of the expenses needed.

"We have spent so much in ensuring that this fight was staged in Ghana but we have to settle our debt now. It will be good to see corporate entities coming in to help us out in order to see many of such international fights here," he said.

“We were responsible for accommodating Cesar Juarez and his team, hiring of the venue and all other things necessary to stage the fight. A lot of the things such as air tickets were obtained on credit and now my creditors are breathing heavily on my neck to pay them.”

“As a country we must come to terms with the fact that it requires a huge investment to get a world champion, and if we want to see Isaac win the title and reign for a long time, then the state must come in and support just as was done many years ago when the state invested so much to make Azumah a world champion.

In a separate interview, the boxer noted that he was always worried at the enormity of the burden his father had to shoulder all the time in preparing him for fights, including the debts he had to deal with.

"I don't like to see him disturbed with financial issues after every fight that we go into. It will be great to see him happy after every win and not to be thinking about how to pay bills.

"We owe a lot from this fight because of the calibre of the bout, and we call on corporate entities to help us financially so we can concentrate on our next opponent," Dogboe explained.