AIBA threatens to go court if IOC disallows Boxing at Tokyo Games

05/07/2019

The International Boxing Association has stated that they would look at their legal options if the International Olympic Committee doesn’t run the boxing programme in Tokyo on their May 22 verdict. The amateur boxing association has assured that they have done enough to address the allegations.

The controversial figure of Gafur Rakhimov has stepped down from the president’s position and was replaced by Moroccan physician Mohamed Moustahsane, which has been the fourth change at the helm of AIBA in less than two years.

IOC and AIBA have been at loggerheads since the Rio Olympics when as many as 36 officials and referees were suspended owing to bout-fixing allegations. To further complicate things, AIBA’s internal investigation had also raised questions about judging the event.

The judgment day is almost here with May 22 being the date when IOC would decide if boxing, as a sport, would be a part of the Olympics. And AIBA has confirmed that if the sport is barred then the association would move to court.

In a statement to AFP, AIBA has stated that it will “defend its legitimate right” for boxing to their organized in Tokyo and they “will review all of its options, including legal, given that the IOC has breached the Olympic Charter”.

IOC had frozen all boxing preparations concerning the Olympics till AIBA did sufficiently address the bout-fixing allegations. Now, with the governing body’s chief executive Tom Virgets insisting that they had met all the requirements asked by IOC, the AIBA executive committee would meet on May 18 in Lausanne to see the proceedings.

“We believe as an organisation that we have done everything that has been asked by the IOC,” Virgets told AFP on Australia’s Gold Coast at a summit of sports federations.

“Every single document asked, we produced, every single requirement we have met, including our president self-suspending, the same manner as IOC members self-suspend when they have problems.”

Virgets also stated that he would move to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) if needed. “We don’t know, this is why we have to explore what are our options, it would be premature for me to speculate what the decision will be.

“The Olympic charter basically says you’ve got to give due process, and we don’t feel like we have received due process,” Virgets added.