Olympic Boxing Leader Questions IOC Evaluation

(ATR) AIBA executive director Tom Virgets tells Around the Rings he doesn’t believe the federation will be fairly assessed by a wide-ranging IOC inquiry.

A group of three IOC members headed by Nenad Lalovic is reviewing AIBA governance reforms, financial management and an array of other issues. The commission is due to present a final report to the IOC Executive Board meeting on May 22 in Lausanne.

Virgets tells ATR that AIBA will present a progress report on its raft of reforms to the inquiry committee on May 20.

Virgets hopes for a positive outcome from the IOC inquiry but worries that AIBA might not be treated fairly.

"Considering that we have produced over 7,000 pages of documents and given the committee full access to our database, coupled with their informal discussions with many who are anti-AIBA, my confidence is very low regarding our ability to be fairly evaluated.

"In the next few weeks we will make public the complete story of this AIBA inquisition. We will leave it to the public to decide if AIBA was treated fairly," he says.

The IOC has threatened to strip AIBA of the right to organize the Tokyo 2020 boxing tournament unless it delivers major reforms.

Two weeks from today, AIBA may learn whether it has the green light to host the Olympic boxing competition. Should the EB decide to strike AIBA from Tokyo, an affirming vote would be needed in June when the IOC Session takes place in Lausanne.

Comments from Down Under

Virgets says there was no major shift in the fragile relationship between the IOC and AIBA in Gold Coast, Australia where SportAccord is being held.

Virgets criticized the IOC president’s comments at the weekend in which Thomas Bach suggested that assembling an alternative boxing organization to manage the competition at Tokyo 2020 was "not rocket science".

Bach promised to have a boxing event at the Tokyo Olympics but cast doubt on who would organize it.

"We want to do this because boxing is important Olympic sport, it is a universal sport, so we want to have boxing on the program. If the case arises we would have to make an effort to have it and to have the qualification process. Organizing a sports event is not rocket science so I guess we will be able to manage it," he was quoted by Australian media at the Australian Olympic Committee annual general meeting in Sydney.

Virgets said Bach’s comment was "very concerning because it certainly minimized what work goes into the preparation for such monumental event," he told Reuters. "I hope he is not that far removed from the work of Olympic programs that he actually believes that. The Olympics needs IFs and we should not forget that."

Virgets might draw a twinge of optimism from the chairman of the IOC Ethics Commission and former U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.

After Moon delivered the welcoming speech Wednesday at SportAccord, he trekked through the exhibition hall of the convention. Stopping at the booth for the 2019 AIBA Boxing World Championships he wasgreeted by organizers of the tournament this September in Ekaterinburg, Russia.

The diplomat and IOC ethics gatekeeper struck a boxing pose with the event mascot and organizers, perhaps the most upbeat encounter involving AIBA and the IOC in many months.

AIBA Working on Change Under New President

Last month, speaking before an IOC Executive Board meeting, Virgets hailed AIBA’s work on its reforms process, highlighting positive results revealed in the federation’s interim audit report.

"Considering where we were one year ago, AIBA has made significant progress towards reducing its debt and has gone from a negative cash flow of over $2 million annually, to a positive cash flow," he said.

ATR is told by an AIBA source that reports in recent days suggesting the boxing federation is threatening to sue the IOC if it is stripped of Olympic governing body status are a misunderstanding.

Interim AIBA president Mohamed Moustahsane had reportedly outlinedthe plan in a letter to executive committee members of the federation.

Moustahsane of Morocco was named interim president replacing Gafur Rakhimov in March. The billionaire Uzbek-born Russian businessman stepped aside as president less than six months after his election in a bid to protect the federation from the possibility of IOC sanctions.

But Moustahsane’s appointment has raised eyebrows. The president of the African Boxing Confederation was chair of the committee responsible for selecting referees for boxing at the Rio Olympics. All 36 of referees and judges were dismissed after the Games by then-President C.K. Wu amid suspicions over corrupt boxing decisions.

In a statement on its website, boxing’s governing body recently affirmed that AIBA has strong and unified support from all its continental federations.

A source close to the interim president told ATR that AIBA is keen to move on from the process of reforms over the past 12 months, when much of its resources have been focused on less than 1 percent of its members – the ones who might qualify for the Olympics.

"Moving on means that AIBA can focus much more on the 99 percent of our members who don’t have a connection to the Olympic Games but are the backbone of the sport," the source said.

"This is a strong focus for Mr. Moustahsane this year – especially doing a lot of good things to improve AIBA’s development programs worldwide, including increasing financial contributions."

"AIBA is ready to get back to doing a good job for its national federations and developing boxing worldwide."

Reported by Mark Bisson

25 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribers only.