Letter: Blood sport

Sir: In the bloodied face of boxer Billy Schwer, the end of the sport in its current form seems inevitable in an Aids-conscious world. With severe cuts to both eyes and blood streaming down his face, Schwer and his opponent, Paul Burke - who also suffered cuts to the face and bled from the nose - bored into one another in the inevitable clinches. The contrast with the recent rugby union match at Murrayfield was stark: there, the merest sign of blood led to a player immediately being dispatched to the touchline to return only once swathed in bandages. Boxing's 'exchange of bodily fluids' is out of kilter with the rest of sport and at odds with all the world's attempts at health education on HIV and Aids. 'This is a grim and bloodstained battle in the Wembley Hall. . . Schwer's face seems to be dissolving into cuts' intoned commentator Harry Carpenter. Unless there are changes - compulsory headmasks, bandages on cuts? - it may prove one of the last.

Yours sincerely,

SHAUN GREEN

Guernsey

25 February