Controversy-struck Aiba stripped of Olympic status; Abap hoping for fair shake in Tokyo

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has stripped troubled boxing body Aiba, or the International Boxing Association, of Olympic status on Wednesday, with the IOC to now run qualifying and final tournaments for the Tokyo 2020 Games.

And as this happened, the Association of Boxing Alliances in the Philippines (Abap) is hoping that competition in Tokyo will run fair and smoothly.

“I just hope that whoever is tasked with choosing the technical officials will be guided well to ensure he/she gets the right people,” Abap secretary general Ed Picson said a day after the IOC stripped its recognition of Aiba.

“That is crucial if we are to have fairly run and fairly judged matches,” Picson added.

The election of Aiba president Gafur Rakhimov, who is under US federal sanctions for suspected links to eastern European organized crime, prodded the IOC last year to investigate boxing’s governance, debts and integrity of Olympic bouts.

Criminal

In December 2017, the US Department of the Treasury noted, “Rakhimov has been described as having moved from extortion and car theft to becoming one of Uzbekistan’s leading criminals and an important person involved in the heroin trade.”

IOC members voted on Wednesday to endorse the executive board’s recommendation last month to suspend Aiba’s Olympic status.

Lausanne-based Aiba has said it is near bankruptcy with debts of about $17 million. It is cut off from income from Tokyo revenues, and the 2019 world championships for men and women in Russia are now devalued without the lure of being Olympic qualifiers.

Picson explained that after the Tokyo Games, the IOC could decide on Aiba’s status as an IOC federation. —WITH A REPORT FROM AP