Boxing Chief for Americas Says AIBA Changes Coming

(ATR) A leader of amateur boxing in the Americas says everything will be done to convince the IOC to keep the sport in the Olympic Games.

International Amateur Boxing Association AIBA is under pressure by the IOC to make changes on several fronts to avoid being cut from the Games. Governance, drug testing, finance and lingering concern over judging at the Rio Olympics are the principal worries.

AIBA faces an April 30 deadline to submit a report to the IOC addressing the concerns.

The IOC Executive Board has already halted aid from Olympic Solidarity to national federations.

"This decision has hurt, especially Latin America and poor federations," Osvaldo Bisbal, president of the American Boxing Confederation, tells Around the Rings. The confederation represents the 42 nations and territories of the Americas included in AIBA membership. Bisbal and the presidents of the four other continental federations are all vice presidents of AIBA.

An IOC official tells Around the Rings that despite possible repercussions for athletes, the suspension of funding is meant to drive AIBA to make changes.

"Athletes are the center of our attention and for that we work but AIBA will have to change a series of things internally. We cannot send subsidies to organizations that are currently under suspicion as to how they operate," says the source in Lausanne.

Bisbal is chair of the AIBA Referees and Judges Commission which has been handling the judging situation from Rio de Janeiro. The possibility of fixed bouts is one of those suspicions of the IOC about AIBA.

Last month Bisbal and the R&J Commission endorsed the suspension of all 36 officials from Rio, a recommendation that now goes to the ruling Executive Committee.

"We have not been able to prove that there has been corruption," Bisbal says.

"I reviewed the almost 300 fights in Rio and found that only three or four results were not to my liking. If that small number of verdicts is supposed to prove corruption, that is a mistake," insists Bisbal.

The Argentinean was a referee at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, Seoul, Barcelona and Atlanta and a technical official in Sydney, Athens, Beijing, London and Rio. Bisbal, familiar with controversial decisions in 2012 from London and Seoul in 1988, says any issues from Rio 2016 are minor by comparison. Questionable decisions in Seoul 30 years ago led the IOC to first raise the possibility of cutting boxing from the Olympics.

"In any sport a referee is subject to making mistakes. And boxing is only three rounds and it is not easy at the Olympic level to define a winner," Bisbal says about results at the Games.

Bisbal avoids the term "suspension" in reference to the measure adopted against the 36 officials. He prefers to say "separated" of all international competition.

Bisbal says that the investigation into these referees continues "but until now there is no evidence of corruption."

Nonetheless, the 36 officials are recommended to be banned from future Olympic Games

Bisbal reveals that a mechanism is being studied that supports protests at the Olympics, currently not allowed under AIBA rules.

Bisbal says regardless of the IOC suspension of funds for AIBA, participation at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games should not be affected.

Bisbal says he is against the reduction of two categories in the men's tournament demanded by the IOC to make room for more female boxers.

"I would have agreed to increase the number of divisions in the female sector, but with the decrease of boxers in each of the 10 categories of men," he explained.

The 49kg and 52kg categories will be eliminated under the IOC proposal.

"I trust in the normalization of relations with the IOC and in the elimination of the threat of excluding boxing from Tokyo 2020. We are doing everything to make that happen," says Bisbal.

Reported by Miguel Hernandez.