The Disciplinary Committee of the Ghana Boxing Authotity GBA has placed bans on two boxers, Richard Commey and Richard Harrison for different  offences.

The Ghana Boxing Authority (GBA) has imposed a two-year ban on Richard O. Commey, former International Boxing Federation (IBF) Lightweight Champion in connection with false accusations and disparaging remarks he made about the GBA Executive in an interview with Kpalogo Mashi TV in the United States of America (USA).

A letter to Commey signed by Mr. Peter Zwenes, President of the GBA said, “the GBA hereby imposes on you a total ban from all GBA organised functions and related activities for a period of two years commencing on March 31, 2021”.

This means Commey, would for the next two years not be allowed to stage any fight in Ghana, attend any GBA organized fights, and activities in Ghana.

The letter said, “it is hoped that the haughty and arrogant posture that you have adopted towards fellow members of the boxing fraternity in recent times would cease in the aftermath of the decision”.

According to the GBA President, the decision follows proceedings of the GBA Disciplinary Committee held on Wednesday, March 31, 2021.

It said the GBA took cognizance of Commey’s admittance of guilt, the apology rendered as well as the intervention of Nii Tackie Teiko Tsuru II, the Ga Mantse in mitigation of his sentence.

Richard Harrison Lartey seemed like he was about to be Ghana’s biggest heavyweight sell to the rest of the boxing world, but a chain of defeats and falsification seem to have bundled all that into a ditch.

The heavyweight boxer has been banned for five years by the GBA, an action that will be circulated to all its affiliated international sanctioning bodies including the WBC, WBA, WBO and IBF. He used fraudulent means to honour his last bout in the UK and will serve this punishment which takes retrospective effect from March 11, 2021.

Richard Lartey Harrison was found to have forged a release letter from the Ghana Boxing Authority (GBA) with a forged signature of the GBA Secretary-General, Patrick Johnson, for his bout with Fabio Wardley in the UK on November 21, 2020. He lost that bout by a second-round TKO.

Subsequently, he refused to appear before the Ghana Boxing Authority, after he was summoned on three occasions – November 26 and 30, 2020 and March 9, 2021.

His career has surely ground to a halt with this development. 

Richard Harrison Lartey defeated Burkina Faso’s Boniface Kabore to annex the WBO Africa title in August 2018. He successfully defended it against Kenya’s Morris Okolla.

The Ghanaian suffered a fourth-round KO at the Wembley Arena in London for the vacant WBO global heavyweight title against Daniel Dubois.

He lost against Nathan Gorman and Fabio Wardley.

In the last two years, the heavyweight has had some major disagreements with his promoters and managers, Cabic Promotions, headed by Ghanaian businessman, Ivan Bruce-Cudjoe. The disagreements ranged from percentages from his purses from some of his fights to contractual breaches.

This beef degenerated into episodes of allegations against his promoters on media platforms. Cabic Promotions at a point resorted to legal action after it was found out that Lartey had negotiated a fight with Frank Warren’s Queensberry promotions, without their knowledge.

Cabic Promotions eventually allowed Lartey to honour the fight after he agreed to certain conditions. The Accra -based, heavyweight has a record of 14 wins and four losses.

From Sammy Heywood Okine