Boxing may be axed from Olympics – Caborn
Former sports minister Richard Caborn has warned that boxing could be axed from the Olympic programme if its disgraced world governing body AIBA wastes its final shot at meaningful reform.
S eve n c a n d i d ate s h ave declared in the race for its vacant pre sidency, o ne of whom, Azerbaijan’s Suleyman Mikayilov, is being adv i s e d by C ab o r n , a l s o a n ex-chair of England Boxing, through his company, Global Sports Investigations.
AIBA was suspended by the International Olympic C o m m i tte e l a s t yea r ove r widespread governance and financial concerns, and an IOC-led Task Force was create d to ove r s e e th e s p o r t through the delayed Tokyo Olympics.
Caborn said: “The IOC do not want to be in a position to be having to run boxing in Paris (in 2024) because it’s not their job to do that, so I think AIBA are drinking in a last chance saloon.
“If they don’t get it back, where will the IOC go? Boxing could be out of the Paris Olympics, there’s no doubt about that. There are only three years between Tokyo and Paris, so we have to got have a reformed AIBA now.”
F ive o f th e s eve n c a ndidates – Mikayilov, Umar K re m l e v, A n a s A l O ta i ba , Bienvenido Solano and the current interim president, Mohamed Moustahsane – are past or present members of AIBA’s executive board.
Boris Van der Vorst, the president of the Dutch Boxing Federation, and Ramie Al-Masri, chairman of the R e fe re e s’ C o m m i s s i o n o f the German Boxing Association, make up the group from whom a new president will be appointed at an AIBA extraordinary congress next month.