MATT JENNINGS has been suspended pending an inquiry by boxing’s governing body – but the Amalgamated Boys Club yesterday said that they are being kept in the dark.
The island’s leading boxer (pictured) pleaded guilty in the Magistrate Court two weeks ago to possessing class A and class B drugs and was fined £1,000.
The matter went to the Amateur Boxing Association of England, whose national child protection and equity manager, Barry Jones, originally said that they dealt with each case as it comes and that the punishments were not set in stone.
Yesterday, he said that the ABAE’s Western Counties Association were now dealing with the issue.
‘He is now subject to an interim suspension, which is exclusion from all activities in amateur boxing,’ he said.
‘He will now be subject to a disciplinary inquiry by the Western Counties [ABA] where all the facts [from the court case] will be made available to the review panel when deciding what his future in the sport may or may not be.
‘He is not allowed to train. He is not allowed to engage [in amateur boxing terms] with anyone.’
But according to the Amalgamated Boys Club’s chairman Dave Hadlington, this was news to them.
‘We’ve heard nothing from the ABA,’ he said.
‘You’re getting more information than we are.’
The 32-year-old Jennings committed the offences at the end of August.
He was on a night out in Town when he was arrested for being drunk and disorderly.
When the police searched him, they found 0.555 grams of cannabis and one Ecstasy tablet.
Jennings insisted to the Guernsey Press that he was holding the drugs for someone else.
He also did not tell the club’s head coach, Graham Guilbert, that he had not been in court.
When the Press informed Guilbert, he said that it spelled the end of Jennings’ boxing career and that he had a zero-tolerance of drugs in his gym.
But in a dramatic U-turn, Guilbert later told other media that his fighter should be given a second chance.
Guilbert, Hadlington and the club are now firmly standing by their man and Hadlington is keen Jennings returns to action.
‘We want to get the guy back into the ring,’ he said.
Article posted on 14th November, 2009 - 2.30pm
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