Boxing: ‘I was offered $155,000 to lose’

SYDNEY: Veteran South African boxer Francois Botha claimed he was offered $155,000 to throw his fight against Sonny Bill Williams.

Williams won the controversial heavyweight bout on points in Brisbane last Friday.

Botha alleges Williams’ manager Khoder Nasser offered him the money in a Brisbane park three days before the World Boxing Association fight, claiming he received a phone call asking to pick him up alone.

“I was offered money by Nasser to throw the fight. I just said ‘no, I can’t do it’,” said Botha.

Nasser slammed Botha as a bad loser after a fight that ended in 10 rounds. “It’s absolute madness. I think he (Botha) is still in a daze,” said Nasser. “If it happened like he said, why didn’t he come out and report it then – or does it suit him now?”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 14^th, 2013.