GAO = Government Accountability Office. They used to be called the General Accounting Office.
Here is a short description of the GAO from their website :
"GAO, commonly called the investigative arm of Congress or the congressional watchdog, is independent and nonpartisan. It studies how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars. GAO advises Congress and the heads of executive agencies ... about ways to make government more effective and responsive. GAO evaluates federal programs, audits federal expenditures, and issues legal opinions. When GAO reports its findings to Congress, it recommends actions."
This is a report by the GAO on July 22, 2003 titled :
"Professional Boxing: Issues Related to the Protection of
Boxers' Health, Safety, and Economic Interests" the report number is
GAO-03-699
GAO reports are made public. You can
search for them on their website
Why did they do the study?
- There was a Professional Boxing Safety Act of 1996 intended to create standards for boxing.
- There was an amendment to that act called the 2000 Muhammed Ali Reform Act to better protect boxers.
- Problems still existed even with these acts in place.
Goals
- What elements are important for protecting fighters and enhancing the integrity of the sport?
- Does the Safety Act of 1996 (with the 2000 Ali amendment) cover those elements?
- Do the boxing commissions have documentation showing that they are in compliance with the Safety Act?
- Do some commissions have their own extra elements (requirements) that they've added on?
- What are the federal actions that have taken place due to the act. Investigations, lawsuits, fines, etc?
What GAO found
- they reviewed testimonies and national studies from 1994 to 2002.
- They identified 15 fundamental elements required to protect fighters and help the sport.
- The 1996 safety act (plus 2000 Ali Amendment) addressed only 10 of the 15 elements that GAO came up with.
- That means, according to the GAO, boxing commissions only needed to comply with 10 of the 15 needed elements to help the sport, according to the safety act.
- There were 46 states and 8 tribal commissions to pick from
- The GAO reviewed 8 states and 2 tribal commissions that accounted for 49% of the overall fights.
- All 10 commissions had documentation indicating compliance of 3 provisions (requirements of the act) at least 75% of the time. These 3 provisions are :
- prefight medical exams,
- disclosure of purses
- registration of boxers
- Only 2 commissions had documentation indicating compliance of of the provision Conflict of Interest at least 75% of the time.
- Reasons for lack of documentation were
- Privacy
- Liability concerns
- they didn't know about the provision
- Federal Actions taken place regarding this safety act are very few.
- Department of Justice (the ones who have authority to prosecute these cases) claimed that federal law enforcement are not reporting many cases for them to prosecute.
- Also, violations of the act are considered only misdemeanors and the Dept. of Justice usually focuses it's resources on felony cases
- Federal Trade Commission regularly checks websites of boxing commissions to see if they publicize the necessary info required by the act
- The Fed. Trade. Comm. says the website info publicized by boxing commissions is adequate.
- There has been a proposal to amend the act signifigantly by
- Creating a new organization within the Department of Labor to oversee and enforce boxing laws
- The new org proposed is supposed to enforce more uniform requirements to enhance safety of boxers and improve the sport
- The government departments and organiations included on the report are :
- Department of Justice
- Federal Trade Commission
- Assocation of Boxing Commissions
- Five State Tribal Commissions
- The latter two expressed concerns :
- the lack of federal enforcement
- economic impact of additional federal requirements
The Letter of the report is addressed to Senator John McCain, who is also the Chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
(*My Sidenote: John McCain is known as an opponent to Mixed Martial Arts competitions and was a major player in pressure applied to cable companies to ban MMA shows from Pay Per View during the later 1990's. The common theory was that McCain had stock in Budweiser, which is Boxing's biggest sponsor.)
