IOC approve exclusion of boxing body from Tokyo

LAUSANNE (SWITZERLAND): The International Olympic Committee yesterday officially took over the boxing qualification and competition for next year’s Tokyo 2020 Olympics and suspended international boxing federation AIBA following a vote at their session.

The IOC voted unanimously to implement a recommendation of their executive board to oust troubled AIBA from the Tokyo 2020 Games over issues surrounding their finances and governance and suspend the body until the issues are resolved.

AIBA have been in turmoil over their finances and governance for years with the federation US$16 million (RM66 million) in debt and an ongoing bitter battle over the presidency that has split the body internally.

Serbian IOC member Nenad Lalovic, who heads an IOC task force to look into the ties with AIBA, earlier yesterday delivered a damning report to the IOC session, saying the association could reach a debt of as much as US$29 million.

He also said AIBA had failed to reform at the top of the organisation.

AIBA president Gafur Rahimov suspended himself from the post in March because of his presence on an US Treasury Department sanctions list “for providing material support” to a criminal organisation. The Uzbek strongly denies the allegations.

Rahimov’s presence on that sanctions list was extremely damaging to the IOC though he has been replaced on an interim basis by Mohamed Moustahsane.

Everyone guilty of what brought AIBA to this, must confess, apologise to the boxing community and leave.” UMAR KREMLEV AIBA executive committee member

“It exposes the IOC and their commercial partners to unacceptable reputational, legal and financial risks,” Lalovic said.

He said AIBA’s debt meant money would not go to sports and the athletes in the future and the organisation still faced problems with refereeing.

Among those voting in favour of the exclusion was former AIBA president CK Wu, who was Rahimov’s predecessor before stepping down in 2017 after a bitter dispute with his own executive committee.

“I think that today... all members of the AIBA Executive Committee will understand that we need to unite and say goodbye to the old,” AIBA executive committee member Umar Kremlev said in a statement.

“Everyone guilty of what brought AIBA to this, must confess, apologise to the boxing community and leave. Our task, as members of the AIBA executive committee, is to unite, to accept early reforms and to start everything from scratch together to bring boxing back to a high level.”

AIBA largely depend on Olympic Games revenues to survive between Games and have started letting people go as a result of their Olympic exclusion. The sport’s governing body will discuss the IOC decision at its executive committee meeting today.

Japanese IOC member Morinari Watanabe, president of the international gymnastics federation, heads the task force to organise qualifiers and the Tokyo Games competition.