COMBAT SPORT IS AT A CROSSROADS. THE GLOBAL FIGHTERS’ ASSOCIATION IS ASKING FIGHT FANS TO HELP FUND THE FIX
- UK’s number one Health and Safety and regulatory justice barrister set to lead the Global Fighters’ Association’s first roundtable inquiry.
- Jonathan Caplan KC is the GFA’s preferred choice to author a fully independent “root and branch” investigation into the safety, governance and treatment of all combat sports participants.
- Dawn Bebe, joint CEO of Crowdfunder – fresh from successful campaigns for Glastonbury and Coldplay – confirmed to lead the GFA’s fundraising campaign, the first phase of a wider, rolling drive for support.
- Announcement comes as the Ali Act comes under threat in the US, with a number of fighters left relying on public donations after career-ending injuries in recent months.
- Donate to the GFA Crowdfunder campaign here
LIVERPOOL, UK – The Global Fighters’ Association (GFA) today launches its first public fundraising campaign, calling on fight fans, fighters and everyone who loves combat sport to donate to “one of the most important Crowdfunder campaigns for many years”.
Jonathan Caplan KC is recognised by his peers as the UK’s number one King’s Counsel for health and safety and for regulatory justice inquiries, and the GFA’s ambition for him to author its completely independent reports is seen as a clear statement of its readiness to achieve its goal of becoming the new umbrella organisation for combat sport.
Caplan is set to lead a process which combines the 360° “root and branch” format of a public inquiry with the more intimate question and answer approach of a House of Commons Select Committee. Each final report will be the result of an exhaustive process of hearing testimony from the most experienced operators within combat sport at all levels – fighters, coaches, physios, doctors, surgeons, referees, judges, promoters, boards of control and governing bodies, media commentators, venues, managers and the friends and families of fighters themselves.
The GFA believes the reports will give it the platform it requires, while its executive team – including Chair Designate Simon Bazalgette, former CEO of the Jockey Club, and Paul Maloney, former leader of the GMB South union, alongside a long list of former elite champions – have made clear the goal is for the GFA to establish itself as the new umbrella organisation for combat sport, representing everyone who relies on the sport for a living.
Chair Designate Simon Bazalgette confirmed that this will be the most thorough independent investigation ever undertaken in combat sports, and that he and the whole GFA team are committed to turning its findings into a roadmap defining their role and Year One actions.
Simon Bazalgette, GFA Chair Designate, said: “Over the last decade or so, professional sports such as rugby, football and horseracing have raised their game when it comes to the welfare of the participants. They recognise that the brand of the sport increasingly depends on demonstrating that best-in-class welfare underpins any aspiration to grow the audience and the commercial value of the sport. It is striking that combat sport is one of the last workplaces with no professional representation for its workers, meaning little protection, no minimum health and safety standard, no independent pension scheme, no insurance floor, and no single body a fighter can turn to when something goes wrong. The GFA has been formed to rectify this, to help the sport create a stronger bond of trust with its participants and its audience, and thereby give a stronger foundation for growth.”
Paul Maloney, GFA Acting General Secretary, said: “What’s happening to the Ali Act in the US right now should be a wake-up call for every combat sport worker, everywhere. It’s the one piece of legislation anywhere in the world that gives fighters real workplace protection, and it’s currently being rewritten in a way critics say favours the promoters and networks that already hold most of the power. If it can be stripped back there, it can happen anywhere else that lacks its own independent, respected voice for fighters – which is exactly why the GFA exists.”
Fans and media may already have heard many of these stories. By commissioning Jonathan Caplan, the GFA is making clear that it will rely solely on independently verified facts. Whether some or all of the stories may be true – fighters going into world title fights with undisclosed weight advantages, illegal equipment discovered too late to stop a bout, undisclosed back-room financial deals to silence whistleblowers, champions retiring with nothing but medical bills to show for their careers, constant issues with gloves and a litany of doping issues – the time for complaints and hearsay is at an end.
In recent months alone, several fighters have suffered serious injuries in and around the ring, leaving their families to fund emergency care and rehabilitation through public fundraising pages and the goodwill of fellow fighters and promoters, rather than through any protective system built for the sport as a whole. These are not isolated incidents – they are the latest in a pattern that has played out across combat sports for years.
The GFA has worked tirelessly for three years researching and developing its strategy and building its support base, with four rounds of extremely successful media coverage that received overwhelming support from across combat sports. Throughout that process, it has engaged extensively with promoters, boards of control and governing bodies across the sport, building the relationships it will need as it moves towards launch.
Formed as a CIC, a Community Interest Company, the GFA will use part of the funds to complete the trade union certification process, allowing it to launch as a stand-alone union working alongside the CIC, which will then focus on international growth. The Crowdfunder campaign, designed as a membership drive with rewards, competitions and money-can’t-buy opportunities, will run for “many months”, setting out what it intends to achieve throughout the different stages of the campaign, while its governance will ensure all funding and spending is transparent.
GFA co-founder Paul Smith said: “We’ve made it clear we need equality and parity between elite athletes selling the same venues on the same broadcast channels as our colleagues in other sports, who are treated with so much more care and respect. It’s not acceptable in 2026 that stories like these keep repeating themselves. Every week, somewhere in this sport, a fighter is hurt, exploited or forgotten, and the only safety net is whatever the boxing community can scrape together after the fact. That’s not a system. That’s a failing. We are not aware of anyone, ever, who has properly invested the time and resources to get under the bonnet of this sport, work out exactly where it is failing fighters, and publish actionable recommendations to fix it. That is exactly what this campaign will fund. No one has ever done this work properly before and we are delighted that Jonathan has agreed to author it. He’s the best there is and fighters and fight fans deserve no less.”
Paul Maloney, GFA Acting General Secretary, said: “Jonathan Caplan KC will ensure these reports will be independent and respected by everyone in the sport, something that is crucial to the GFA being given the authority it needs to deliver change from within. That starts with the simple premise that there must be equality between elite athletes in how they are treated in their workplaces, something that our colleagues in other sports and their unions – including the PFA – recognise; in fact the PFA have been extremely helpful as we have developed the strategy. Like us, they find it shocking that there is no unionised representation in combat sports at all, so our drive for equality starts with changing that.”
Amir Khan, GFA Co-Founder, said: “There has to be an organisation that’s above everything, that we can all report to when something goes wrong, whether that’s in training, at a weigh-in, in a contract, or in retirement. The GFA is that organisation.” Stephen Smith, GFA Co-Founder, said: “I trained and fought for years alongside fighters who had absolutely nothing to fall back on the day it all stopped. That’s true at world-title level and for someone in their first fight. Jonathan Caplan’s reports are how we start to make sure the changes we will fight for are built on evidence, not opinion – so that when we go to promoters, broadcasters and boards of control, nobody can dismiss what we’re saying. Every pound donated to this campaign is a pound spent building the case for every fighter who’s never had anyone in their corner outside the ring. This campaign is how we build something that protects them too, not just the champions.”
Directed by Crowdfunder CEO Dawn Bebe and Head of Campaigns Max Upton, today’s launch marks the first phase of a wider, rolling fundraising campaign for the GFA, with an initial target of £500k. The campaign will continue beyond that figure for as long as it takes to build the GFA’s full membership base, running until the GFA completes its trade union certification – at which point membership will transition to a direct relationship with the GFA union.
Funds raised will support the roundtable reports and the development of the GFA’s training academy at its new HQ in Liverpool. The first report addresses health and safety and education; this will be followed by reports into transparency and consistency in professional bout scoring, qualifications, accountability and training for judges, standards for post-fight review procedures, potential models for structured scoring reviews, doping, judging and governance, retirement planning, contracts and insurance. Because ultimately, this is about far more than the big nights the world watches on TV.
Combat sport and martial arts are part of the fabric of everyday life in this country: thousands of gyms and clubs teaching children and young people discipline, confidence and self-respect; a route into fitness and better health for people of every age and background; and, for many, one of the few places they ever properly learn to understand and use their own bodies.
Boxing, MMA and the wider combat sports world do not just entertain us – they build people, every single day, in every community.
That is why the GFA believes protecting and supporting everyone who takes part, from grassroots to world champion, is not a niche concern. It is a responsibility to a sport that is already doing far more good than it is given credit for – and one worth fighting to protect.
Whether you’re a lifelong fight fan, a fighter, a coach, a promoter or a broadcaster, this is your invitation to be a founder member of the GFA – the new umbrella organisation for combat sport globally.
Because in the end, none of the labels matter as much as the one thing we all share. We are all fight fans first.
