AIBA Leaders Block Return of Rakhimov to Presidency

(ATR) Boxing federation officials have today voted to prevent Gafur Rakhimov, the Uzbek-born Russian businessman, from returning as AIBA president.

As reported by Around the Ringsearlier on Thursday, AIBA leaders have scrapped bylaw 16.3 in the federation's Statutes that would have allowed Rakhimov to return as president after his self-suspension.

At an extraordinary executive committee meeting in Geneva on Thursday, 13 members voted in favor, with one against and eight abstentions. The motion was proposed by Ukraine’s Volodymyr Prodyvus and seconded by Bulgarian boxing federation vice president Emilia Grueva.

The bylaw that has been removed reads as follows:

"If the president is temporarily unable or unwilling to exercise his or her powers as president for whatever reason, but does not resign, an interim president shall be appointed in accordance with Art. 39.3 of the Statutes. If, at the latest 90 days before the date of the Extraordinary Congress called to elect a new president, the elected president is able or wishes to resume his or her activities, he or she shall then be entitled to recover his or her authority for the remainder of his or her term of office. The vice president appointed as interim president shall then continue to serve in his or her

capacity as vice president for the rest of his or her term."

Under fire from the IOC, Rakhimov stepped aside from AIBA in March less than six months after his election in a bid to protect the federation from the possibility of IOC sanctions.

President Thomas Bach and senior IOC officials had expressed significant concerns about the billionaire businessman, who is on a U.S. Treasury Department list for alleged connections to Russian transnational criminal organizations.

He is described as "one of the leaders of Uzbek organized crime". Rakhimov has repeatedly denied the allegations.

The IOC Session this week ratified an executive board decision to ban AIBA from any involvement in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics after it failed to overhaul a series of governance and financial issues pivotal to maintaining its status as the Olympic boxing body.

Boxing officials also today voted to hold an Extraordinary Congress at which a new president is set to be elected.The Secretary General of the Russian Boxing Federation and AIBA Executive Committee member Umar Kremlev says the meeting will be November 15 in Lausanne.

In a statement, Kremlev also revealed that separate commissions were organized to discuss the restoration of AIBA with the IOC and to prepare for the Congress.

Reported by Mark Bisson

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