SportsInGhana.com can exclusively reveal that star footballer Asamoah Gyan is adding boxing is adding boxing promotion and management to his sport repertoire and makes his debut promotion come next weekend in Accra.
Gyan, lead striker of Ghana’s the national soccer team Black Stars, will next week Friday July 6 stage the maiden promotion for his newly established BabyJet Promotions and Management at the Lebanon House in the heart of Accra. Organized in collaboration with Box office Sports Promotions, the bill is headlined by the 12 rounds national super bantamweight championship between incumbent champion Raymond Commey and challenger Emmanuel Quartey.
Gyan, the highest paid African sportsman according ESPN’s The Magazine’s Money Issue salary survey project, has confessed his love for the fistic sport and actually trains and spars with boxers whilst on holidays. In fact, just last week he went eight rounds with former Commonwealth champion Percy Commey.
“I’ve got the passion for it and I feel like training to maintain my strength, not that I want to fight myself. I love the game, it’s my passion. I’ve been following most of the fights and I’m a big fan of Floyd Mayweather and Joshua Clottey,”Gyan told us exclusively at his plush East Legon residence in Accra late Tuesday night.
“When he is going to play a football match, it’s only boxing he watches, he never watches football,” added Asamoah’s elder brother Baffour. So won’t delving into boxing affect the football career of the Black Stars superstar who is already also into music?
“Not at all, I’m somebody who is dedicated to my game for example when I’m on the pitch, I know whom to pass to and I know what to do. I know and love my football, that’s what I said I will do so nothing can stop me,” Asamoah Gyan, a close friend of former IBF Welterweight champion Joshua Clottey, stated confidently.
He explained: “I have passion for boxing. I am a Ghanaian, I want to help my community, I want to help my country because when I come on holidays it’s like no boxing is going on and Ghana it’s like we’ve got a lot of great boxers previously talking about Azumah Nelson, Ike Quartey, Joshua Clottey, so we need to push the young ones coming up. As a Ghanaian I need to encourage the young ones coming up and those who want to achieve their aim.” The Al Ain striker is thereby urging all to be present at the Lebanon House on July 6 to witness the beginning of a new chapter in Ghana boxing.
“Definitely, all are invited to come and I will tell many of my footballer and musician friends to come and watch the show. I want boxing to become big, seriously I want boxing to make the country interesting again,” Baby Jet said.