Former world ranked one welterweight boxer Terrence Ali says he has become the victim of malicious rumours in recent times since returning home to live from the United States.

"A lot of people are going around saying I am mad, I am sick , I am blind, which is causing me and people close to me a lot of distress," a very normal looking Ali said this week.

"As you can see there is nothing wrong with me, I can see, I can talk sense and I am quite alright," the 42-year-old ex-fighter explained.

"There are things being said by people who know me well and who should know better", Ali lamented. "I feel they are only doing this to keep people away from me who want to help".

Ali said since his retirement from the sport, he has fallen on hard times and has not recovered financially after a failed investment, and is need of all the help he can get.

Ali who fought three times for world titles, said he was swindled four million dollars by a business partner who managed a trucking service he established here before his retirement. The truck he said fell in disrepair and he is currently trying to raise funds to fix it.

Ali, who returned home in 1998, was also given a plot of land by President Bharrat Jagdeo this year to build a house and was promised that arrangements would be made to fund its construction. So far the land has been acquired but Ali says he has been waiting three months for the house to be built. The former Guyana welterweight champ is presently eking out an existence at Mahaicony on the East Coast.