Rivals of amateur boxing chief appeal for IOC intervention

IOC eyes Olympic villages for cost reductions

LAUSANNE, Oct 3, (Agencies): Opponents of amateur boxing chief Wu Ching-Ko have appealed to IOC president Thomas Bach to intervene to protect the “financial stability of world boxing”.

Wu’s position has been challenged by the AIBA’s executive committee, who claim the Taiwanese had led the sport to the brink of bankruptcy.

In a letter to Bach dated Sept 29, the executive committee (EC) said Wu “has kept hidden ... the fact that auditors KPMG are unhappy with AIBA accounts and will not approve them”.

“We therefore asked President Wu for a full and open accounting of AIBA finances, which we believe are on the brink of technical bankruptcy or insolvency. President Wu has refused to reply to us,” the committee said in the letter.

The committee members suffered an initial setback last week when a Lausanne court confirmed Wu as president following a motion of no-confidence against his leadership.

In reply to the letter sent by the committee to the IOC, Wu posted his own on Monday to “express apology for the inappropriate behaviour by certain AIBA EC members”, whose “actions were designed for personal purpose at the cost of boxing’s reputation and development”.

“The EC members who are against me understand that AIBA finance is healthy but still make false allegations. Their agenda is self-explanatory,” said Wu, who has headed AIBA since 2006.

“Their failed attempts have been underlined by their last-ditch resort to involve you and the IOC,” he added.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said it had no comment on the letter.

“As a matter of policy the IOC does not respond to open letters,” an IOC spokesperson told AFP.

“It has taken note of the court decision against the IMC (interim executive committee) in this internal AIBA dispute.”

Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee is looking at various areas to cut costs for hosting the Games including the “level of service” in Olympic villages, IOC Vice President John Coates told Tokyo 2020 organisers on Tuesday.

Coates, in opening remarks before a regular project review meeting, said the IOC had contacted 28 major national Olympic committees (NOCs) for their feedback by the end of this month.

“We are putting a number of questions to those national Olympic committees as to how we think we can find savings by reducing, to an acceptable level, the level of service in the Olympic village,” he said.

Tokyo organisers have been working to slash costs after a study last year warned expenses could balloon to four times the initial estimate made during the bid process.

The IOC is keen for Tokyo to cut costs further and set a good example to attract future candidate cities, rather than scare them off with stories of outof-control spending.

Coates said the IOC would share the responses of the national Olympic committees with its athletes commission.