new delhi drawing flak from some quarters after turning professional star indian boxer vijender singh on friday got the backing of sports minister sarbananda sonowal who met him here and asked him to ignore the criticism vijender who signed up with the ukbased queensberry promotions earlier this month for a fouryear deal met the minister and discussed his decision to quite amateur boxing with him i spoke to him this morning and he told me that i could come over for a meeting and it was wonderful because i explained to him that professional boxing was the obvious next step for me after representing india in three olympic games vijender said after the meeting he was extremely supportive of my decision and wished me all the luck added indias first olympic and world championships bronzemedallist who was also ranked world number one in middleweight at the peak of his amateur stint vijenders decision to turn pro has been met with mixed reactions so far and he has drawn some criticism for bidding adieu to amateur boxing just one year before what could have been his fourth olympic appearance however vijender said the sports minister held no such views he knew of the noise being created about my decision but he told me just ignore all that and do well it was moraleboosting to meet him because he told me that he thoroughly enjoys watching professional boxing he said that he had seen the manny pacquiaofloyd mayweather bout recently the strapping sixfooter said vijender would be making his professional debut in september in the uk and might be seen fighting in india in december