Federation Focus: India, AIBA at Odds Over World Champs

(ATR) The AIBA Men’s World Boxing Championships are moving from Asia to Europe amid controversy.

The international boxing federation says it stripped the 2021 event from New Delhi, India and awarded it to Belgrade, Serbia because the Indian capital "didn’t fulfill its obligations to pay host fee as mentioned in the Host City Agreement terms".

AIBA says it terminated the contract and that India would have to pay a cancellation penalty of $500,000.

The Boxing Federation of India (BFI) disputes that, saying in a statement that AIBA failed to help in clearing up an issue over where to send the money after AIBA's accounts in Lausanne were frozen. The BFI claims it did not want to send the money to an account in Serbia, since the country was on the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) grey list being monitored for money laundering and terrorist financing.

The BFI said it accepted losing the hosting rights "for the best interest of AIBA", but called the $500,000 penalty "shocking and surprising".

"We are in touch with AIBA and BFI President Ajay Singh has spoken with AIBA Interim President, Mohamed Moustahsane a while back and both parties are working for an amicable solution," the BFI added.

In response, AIBA on Wednesday said that Serbia was removed from the FATF grey list in June 2019, months before the Dec. 1, 2019 deadline to pay half of the host fees.

AIBA added that the decision "was also prompted by the fact that almost two-thirds of the Host Fee due by BFI for having hosted the 2018 AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships remains outstanding to date, more than 18 months after the event. This host fees should have been paid by BFI in summer 2018."

As for the 2021 event, Moustahsane says the federation will work with Serbia on possible dates, most likely after the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics are completed in August of 2021.

"It’s a big step toward our new competition system and also the financial stability of our organization, which is going to be less and less dependent on the Olympic money," Moustahsane added.

AIBA was suspended by the IOC in July 2019 over a range of concerns including governance, finance and judging.Suspended too are millions of dollars in payments to AIBA from the IOC for the sport’s share of TV revenue from the Olympics.

An IOC task force was put in charge of Olympic qualification and the Olympic boxing tournament for Tokyo.

The IOC suspension will remain in place until after the rescheduled Tokyo Games, when it will be reviewed.

Dance Sport's Financial Struggles

The coronavirus pandemic is forcing the World Dance Sport Federation (WDSF) to make drastic cuts to ensure its survival and prosperity.

The WDSF, in a note to members this week, said that it was able on April 13 "to secure modest Swiss government support for our professional staff at our Lausanne office during the partial shutdown". Even so, the staff has "effectively accepted" a 20 percent pay cut.

On March 16, the federation had implemented a complete suspension of all spending aside from the salaries/fees of the WDSF staff, officers, IOC consultant, contractors (as far as possible), and the WDSF headquarters.

"Organizationally and financially the pathway we are currently on is very painful, but we believe we will come out the other side stronger and more resilient than ever," the WDSF told its members.

World Athletics Launches Fund to Help Athletes

World Athletics and the International Athletics Foundation (IAF) are teaming up to support professional athletes experiencing financial hardship due to the coronavirus pandemic.

A $500,000 fund will be used to assist those who have lost most of their income in the last few months due to the suspension of international competition, says World Athletics President and IAF chair Sebastian Coe.

The money comes from the IAF, which allocated resources from its budgets for 2020 and 2021 for use in the process.

Coe will chair a multi-regional working group including Olympic champion and 1500m world record-holder Hicham El Guerrouj and Olympic pole vault champion Katerina Stefanidi to assess the applications for assistance, which will be submitted through World Athletics’ six Area Associations.

The working group is meeting this week to establish a process for awarding and distributing grants to individual athletes and to look at other ways to raise additional monies for the fund.

"We are hopeful that we will be able to stage at least some competition later this year, but in the meantime we will also endeavor, through this fund and additional monies we intend to seek through the friends of our sport, to help as many athletes as possible," Coe said.

Written by Gerard Farek

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