Revolving Door for Olympic Boxing Federation

(ATR) International Boxing Federation AIBA is now led by its fourth president in two years.

Moroccan Mohamed Moustahsane was selected this weekend as interim president of the federation that is supposed to represent boxing at the Olympics. AIBA, under suspension by the IOC since late 2017, is battling doubts about whether it will remain the federation handling the sport in the Games.

Last week Gafur Rakhimov announced he would step aside as president, less than six months after his election to the post. The Uzbek businessman, long affiliated with Asian boxing and AIBA, also has a controversial background which is causing discomfort at the IOC. The U.S. Treasury Department has named Rakhimov as an individual suspected of ties to organized crime in Russia. His designation comes with restrictions on travel, including to the U.S. as well as numerous other countries, including Switzerland where AIBA is headquartered.

Rakhimov has continually rejected the charges against him, claiming that political squabbles in Uzbekistan are the reason he’s been tagged by U.S. authorities.

The IOC says his election represents a reputational risk for not only the federation, but also for the other sports on the Olympic program.

Rakhimov says he is leaving the presidency to protect the federation from the possibility of IOC sanctions that could ban AIBA from involvement in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

But a statement from the IOC says that there are other issues that AIBA needs to address, in addition to its leadership. An IOC inquiry commission is supposed to make an interim report this week to the IOC Executive Board meeting in Lausanne.

The three-member panel is reviewing a range of concerns that also include finance, refereeing and drug testing. The commission is pursuing answers to 41 questions raised by management consultant Deloitte about the operations of AIBA. The report is expected to be complete in June when the next meeting of the EB is scheduled.

An IOC spokesman tells Around the Rings that no decision is expected this week about AIBA at the EB meeting in Lausanne.

The choice of Moustahsane to lead AIBA may do little to restore IOC confidence in the federation. Now the president of the African Boxing Confederation, in 2016 Moustahsane was chair of the committee responsible for selecting referees for boxing at the Rio Olympics.

All 36 of those referees and judges were dismissed after the Games by then-President C.K. Wu. AIBA Executive Director Karim Bouzidi was fired three days before the end of the Olympic tournament.

French newspaper Le Monde is reporting this week that Bouzidi is the subject of an inquiry by AIBA. The newspaper reports that he is suspected of influencing the refereeing and judging to favor French boxers who won six medals in Rio. The head of the French Boxing Federation tells Le Monde that every medal was won fairly.

The elevation of Moustashane as interim president may not assuage concerns from the IOC about AIBA governance either. The 50-year-old Moroccan, president of the African Boxing Confederation, is the third interim president since 2017.

Whether he will serve the remaining three years in the term vacated by Rakhimov is not clear. Nor is there certainty that Rakhimov will not return to the AIBA presidency once the IOC makes its decision about Tokyo 2020.

The IOC has said that it will protect the interests of athletes preparing for the Olympics, a signal that it wants to keep boxing on the program. The findings of the commission will determine whether AIBA will remain the federation in charge of the sport at the Games.

Reported by Ed Hula.