The South African amateur boxing championships take place next week.

Where? Who knows. When? Who knows.

I only know about it because a professional fighter mentioned it to me.

Amateur boxing enjoys the lowest profile of almost any sport out there. It’s a quaint sub-culture all of its own. There are small gyms dotted around town, tournaments apparently take place fairly often and a couple of youngsters even turn professional every year.

Having attended the session where boxers apply for their pro licenses earlier this year, it was painfully obvious that pickings were thin.

I heard the other day that government is throwing R10-million the way of amateur boxing, presumably to get things fired up ahead of Rio next year.

The SA National Boxing Organisation ought to spend a bit of that cash on marketing. One look at their website offers a suitable metaphor for the game in South Africa – it’s a miserable-looking little thing last updated two years ago.

Its “organisational strategic plan” sounds promising, but the link reveals . . . nothing (see accompanying photograph).

Probably because it doesn’t exist. Obviously.

You sense that this complacency abounds across the amateur discipline. And you would be right. Former South African welterweight champion Harold Volbrecht, who developed in the amateurs in the 1970s and enjoyed a prolific pro career, has become a leading trainer. Yesterday, he told a local website that amateur training was “pathetic”.

It must be. Prior to international readmission in the early 1990s, boxing had accrued more medals than any other sporting discipline at the Olympic Games. In six Games since, the haul has been zero.

You wonder where the next Hekkie Budler or Zolani Tete might emerge from. The pro trainers constantly scout the amateur shows, but they all grumble about the poor standards.

Like a worn-out journeyman, the slog continues.