IOC to decide Dec. 1 on boxing in 2020

LONDON — The International Olympic Committee is moving toward expelling boxing’s international federation, a step that could imperil one of the tent-pole events of the Summer Olympics at the 2020 Games in Tokyo.

Controversy has for years plagued the boxing federation, which is known by the acronym AIBA. Then last month, a man the U.S. Treasury Department has described as “one of Uzbekistan’s leading criminals” won the AIBA presidency and took control of the world governing body.

That man, Gafur Rakhimov, a Russian citizen, had been AIBA’s interim leader after his predecessor, C.K. Wu, was forced out following a financial scandal that pushed the organization to the brink of bankruptcy. The scandal raised questions — many still unanswered — regarding the whereabouts of millions of dollars of AIBA revenue.

To his supporters, Rakhimov is seen as the federation’s savior because of deals he cut with AIBA creditors. To the IOC, his appointment is the latest misstep by an organization that has lurched from crisis to crisis, including questions about the fairness of boxing judges and AIBA’s anti-doping measures.

The IOC will decide at a meeting Dec. 1 whether to cast out AIBA. If it does, the IOC will have to scramble to organize an Olympic boxing competition for the Tokyo Games that the boxing federation has not sanctioned.

Rakhimov is fighting to clear his name with the Treasury Department, which in December accused him of “providing material support” to the Thieves-in-Law, an international crime syndicate centered in the former Soviet Union. Rakhimov denies the allegations, saying they are linked to politically motivated charges, now dropped, by members of the former government in Uzbekistan.