Could it be that at long last some effort is being made to clean up professional boxing? As Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis square up for their second fight there are straws in the wind which suggest that the powers that be - namely the United States Government - have lost patience with the clearly corrupt organisations which regulate boxing under a number of different guises.

The New York State Senate Committee, which has spent eight months investigating the boxing organisations, has recommended that the three major international boxing organisations - the World Boxing Organisation (WBO), the World Boxing Association (WBA) and the International Boxing Federation (IBF) - should all be wound up and amalgamated under an umbrella heading, notionally to be called the National Boxing Association. The US Congress has agreed and has passed a law giving effect to such a course of action.

On the face of it this would appear to be a very good thing. The big difficulty is that these three organisations may not all be answerable to United States law despite the fact that the US Congress would wish otherwise.

It is interesting to note that the head of the New York State Senate which carried out the most recent investigation into corruption in boxing, Roy Goodman, had this to say when he announced the findings of his committee.

"The sweet science of boxing has turned sour and we want to do everything to ensure that it be cleansed of what, at the moment, appears to be a very dangerous situation, rife with corruption."

During the last fortnight or so the president and three other officials of the International Boxing Federation were indicted for bribery in Newark, New Jersey on charges of selling "rankings" to boxers for more than 14 years.

"Rankings" are important to boxers because the higher his ranking, the better chance a boxer has of getting matches of a higher calibre and, by extension, a bigger purse. It is genuinely accepted that if you are not in the top 10 in the "rankings" you have no chance of getting a world title fight.

The people who decide the "rankings" are, however, the people who run the organisation which decides which rank you are at. On a whim they can ignore a boxer's record and advance him in the rankings without reference to his results.

We know in this country how a bulging brown envelope can influence decisions such as these. That, it would appear, has been the basis of the decision in the IBF case.

Much of what is happening now has arisen over the last few months because of the farcical outcome of the Holyfield-Lewis fight last March when a draw was declared although the vast majority of those watching believed that Lewis had won. So did one of the judges, another gave it to Holyfield and the third voted it a draw. It was significant that at the chaotic press conference which followed, Don King was smiling broadly and announced that the two men would have to "dance again". This was understood to mean that there was a lot more money available for the rematch and that King, as a co-promoter, would gain a major share of the money generated.

But boxing has been under a cloud for quite some time and will probably remain so. It is very doubtful if the moguls who run the three major associations listed above would be willing to give up their powerful and lucrative positions.

Those who have some insight into boxing politics know very well that there are many people within the body politic of the sport who have little or no respect for law of any kind and that, should the US Government pass laws to limit the influence of boxing administrators, the said administrators would merely drift away to what has become known in this country as "an offshore account".

What genuine boxing supporters know very well is that when they are asked to pay big bucks for seats at top fights anywhere in the world the money is going into the pockets of already extremely rich men with the boxers getting only a small percentage.

Sadly, it must be said that many of the ambitious young men who take up boxing will never be adequately rewarded for their hours of commitment to their sport. Only a very small percentage can expect to make enough to earn a decent living and a retirement pension.

There are many examples of men who scaled the heights of international professional boxing who have ended up impoverished. Men like Joe Louis and Jack Dempsey had a harder time outside the ring than within it at the end of their careers. Mike Tyson is reported to owe the revenue commissioners a huge amount of money. Here at home we know that Jack Doyle made huge amounts of money but died in poverty. Other fighters have paid with their lives.

What all of this proves to people who love sports of all kinds is that there are many people who are willing to put themselves before the athletes in order to rake off a percentage of their income.

It is hoped that the first steps taken by the US authorities may lead to a more decent and acceptable form of boxing.