THE TORTURED and tortuous saga of the Irish Amateur Boxing Association continues and shows little signs of abatement.

The association's respected vice president Breandan O Conaire seemed at the end of his lengthy tether during the fraught annual general meeting at the Ringside Club in Dublin last Sunday when he admitted that the constant internal squabbling was making it increasingly difficult to get any respectable firm to offer sponsorship to the IABA and that the image of boxing itself was suffering as a consequence.

What annoys most rank and file members of the IABA is not any suspicion of any wrongdoing by previous officers of the association, its trustees or those who run the Ringside Club. What rankles and infuriates practically everybody is the air of secrecy created by the former board of trustees and the people who are now responsible for the running of the Ringside Club.

Ordinary boxing people detect an apparent attitude that the rank and file is not to be trusted with information pertaining to the affairs of these bodies, in the manner of a Victorian parent sending a naughty offspring to bed without any supper.

There was little welcome by the delegates for the statement, from the secretary of the Ringside Club last Sunday to the effect that only founder members of the club would be allowed to attend its annual general meeting. And a date for that meeting was not announced.

As a founder member of the club who was never invited to any meeting, I have some interest in this myself.

Olive and Paddy Keogh are in the same position. Olive has been an IABA official for many years and Paddy, both as a boxer and coach, has given signal service to the association. I have a vague memory that the three of us joined at one and the same time and paid the entrance fee of £10.

Now we are told that the fee has been increased to £30 and that the payment of this sum of money entitles members to avail of the facilities of the club for only one night a week.

There was even a suggestion at the IABA agm that membership of the club was no longer available to rank and file members and that information about the club's affairs was not going to be provided openly.

Nobody can complain about that but there was no explanation as to why members of the club are not informed of meetings or general affairs.

It was even suggested that `annual general meetings of the club will be held only once every four years. When a request from the floor that a list of members be supplied there was a stoney silence from the few people present who had possession of that information.

All of this leads to the suspicion that there is something to hide, a suspicion which could easily be allayed by providing documentation to a meeting of the Central Council held, if thought wise, in camera.

The Irish Amateur Boxing Association is an admirable institution in Irish sporting life. Far-seeing people acquired the premises on the South Circular Road nearly 60 years ago and established a custom-built boxing stadium.

Down the years, through shrewd and faithful stewardship, more land has been bought. The Ringside Club (a licensed social club) has been developed and more recently a state of the art gym has been constructed, making the entire site one of the most compact and excellent sporting venues in the country.

The original stadium and the Ringside Club are now used for many things other than sport, from bingo to prayer meetings to birthday parties and pop concerts and, on one occasion, the annual convention of a political party.

Time has taken its toll of the original building and it badly needs some surgery to restore it to its former glory.

Constant squabbling and rancour has done nothing at all to improve the situation or move the IABA itself into modern times.

Letters are now flying about, mostly from the offices of solicitors, seeking to find a solution. Arbitrators are being suggested and in the event of disagreement on these the High Court may be dragged into the row.

It has to be accepted that there are people of good will and common sense on all sides of a bitter dispute which will not go away easily. For that reason it might not be a bad idea if the Minister for Sport, Bernard Allen, was to intervene.

The taxpayers - you and me - to whom Mr Allen is answerable have made considerable contributions over the years, and their attitude should be taken into account.

Bernard Allen will have done a service to Irish sport if he can end the sniping and innuendo which has bedevilled the association for more than a decade.

Let the people elected to run the sport get on with its promotion, protection and administration. Let the boxers do the fighting!