Boxing Fed Waits for IOC Inquiry

(ATR) International boxing federation AIBA will have to wait until the IOC is ready to hear why the federation should remain in charge of the sport at the Tokyo Olympics and beyond.

A three-member panel was named two months ago to review a range of issues at AIBA, the International Boxing Association. Led by IOC Executive Board member and United World Wrestling president Nenad Lalovic, the panel met a week ago in Lausanne for the first time.

But this initial session did not include any representation from the federation, AIBA executive director Tom Virgets tells Around the Rings. He says he didn’t hear about the meeting until it was over. Virgets says the only communication so far has been a December letter from Lalovic that said AIBA will be consulted once the IOC panel has completed its initial work.

Newly elected AIBA president Gafur Rakhimov has publicly called for the IOC to begin meeting with the federation as soon as possible. But the IOC is working on its own schedule while AIBA waits to make its case.

"AIBA is preparing documents to present that will address the additional advances that we have made on every question and area that the IOC has asked us to report on since December of 2017," Virgets tells ATR.

IOC spokesman Mark Adams confirms more information needs to be gathered before there’s a meeting with AIBA.

"Any possible joint meeting will be determined once all the documents and responses we have from AIBA have been studied," he says.

Other members of the IOC panel include Richard Carrion from Puerto Rico and Emma Terho, the Finnish Winter Olympian who’s a member of the IOC Athletes Commission.

The group was formed in response to the outcomes of the AIBA Congress held in November.

A primary concern of the IOC is the election of Rakhimov as president of the federation last November.

He was the overwhelming choice of the congress for president, despite an IOC Ethics Commission warning that the Uzbek-born businessman was not suitable to serve as president of the federation. The IOC objects to Rakhimov’s name appearing on a U.S. Treasury Department list of suspected organized crime figures in Russia.

Twice in the past year the IOC has taken the extraordinary step of sending letters to the 200 national governing bodies under the AIBA umbrella. The communications from the IOC Director General have warned the rank-and-file that the international federation is at peril as a result of the choice of new leadership as well as other issues. The IOC missives came as a result of concerns that the AIBA member associations were not being correctly informed of the challenges faced by the IF.

In general, the IOC believes that Rakhimov presents a reputational risk to all Olympic sports as long as his name remains on the U.S. list. Rakhimov says political conflicts in Uzbekistan are behind his placement on the list. He denies any organized crime links and has filed legal papers in the U.S. to be removed from the list.

Virgets, AIBA executive director since last January after a long career in collegiate sports and boxing in the U.S., says the federation is ready to present the IOC with evidence of major changes under a new administration.

Following a financial crisis that threatened to drive AIBA into bankruptcy, Rakhimov says he has managed to negotiate settlements with creditors that will preserve the financial viability of the federation. Since last year, the IOC has cut off its payments to AIBA from Olympic TV revenues remaining to be shared from the 2016 Games.

Rakhimov took over as interim president in January 2018, along with Virgets as executive director. Rakhimov got to drop the interim title after his election in November at the AIBA Congress in Moscow, elected to a four-year term. Virgets handles day to day activities at the headquarters office in Lausanne.

"We have had a group of AIBA subject matter experts come to the AIBA office to work on implementation of the new protest procedures and to address the 21 recommendations of the PwC group that reviewed our Referee and Judges program. We are implementing all 21 of their recommendations," says Virgets.

"We have also scheduled for our own assessment, a financial audit, to have an outside auditor evaluate how well we are doing with implementation of the financial practices that we put into place approximately seven months ago, to validate the current financial health of the organization.

"AIBA is continuing to follow the strategic direction that we outlined in our new foundation plan. We anticipate that the IOC's concerns will center on how AIBA is progressing in all of the areas they focused upon in the past, and I am confident that we will be able to show continued improvements in all areas," says Virgets.

Virgets says Rakhimov, a 20+ year veteran of the boxing scene in Asia, is keeping a keen eye on what is happening in Lausanne.

"The AIBA President has instructed that we continue to move forward, "sharpening the blade" with all of our reforms while we await the IOC’s correspondence," he says.

There is no public timetable from the IOC detailing the next moves of the Lalovic panel. The one certainty is that the findings are expected to be finished in June. The IOC Executive Board will meet at the end of the month followed by an IOC Session, both meetings crucial if this saga continues to Tokyo.

Should the IOC inquiry panel find serious fault with AIBA, the EB could recommend that the IOC Session remove AIBA as the organization representing the sport at the Olympics. Such a drastic move has never been made in the history of the modern Games.

Planning for the Tokyo Olympics and other events is continuing, regardless of the dispute between IOC and federation, says Virgets.

Right now he says AIBA is working on preparations for the Pan American Games in Lima this July.

"Until we are told otherwise, AIBA is fully engaged with working with the Americas Boxing Confederation to ensure a quality Pan Am Games boxing program. This includes the organizing of the Pan Am qualifier," he says.

"Keep in mind that AIBA is an autonomous sport organization and that the Olympics is one of many boxing programs and events that we participate in," Virgets says.

Managua is the choice of AIBA for the Pan Am Games qualifier in April. When it was pointed out that the Nicaraguan capital might pose some challenges given political tensions these days, Virgets acknowledged the reality.

"Yes, but AIBA is used to being in difficult places," he says.

Reported by Ed Hula and Miguel Hernandez. .