Boxing’s top amateur governing body has had a very rough past 18 months and it could potentially result in boxing not even being a part of the 2020 Olympics.
The International Boxing Committee launched an investigation into whether or not match-fixing took place in the 2016 Olympics in Rio De Janeiro.
Not only has the IOC threatened to cancel the sport in its upcoming Olympics in Tokyo, but it has also cracked down on at the AIBA’s financial issues and current interim president. The IOC has frozen any and all contact with the AIBA and all financial payments to the AIBA have been suspended. Wu Ching-Kuo was the AIBA's president until last year when allegations of financial mismanagement were made against the organization.
Franco Falcinelli was named interim president until late January when Gafur Rakhimov was named the new interim president. According to The Guardian, Rakhimov has been identified by the United States Department of the Treasury as a person having ties to organized crime and involved in the heroin trade.
A statement from the executive board listed several areas of concern when it comes to boxing, “particularly in the areas of governance, financial matters, anti-doping, judging and refereeing.” The statement also said the AIBA needs to meet “specific requirements" regarding the aforementioned areas the AIBA had been supposedly failing at.
IOC President Thomas Bach said there “is still no real clarity of the finances” and the IOC “cannot see a real robust anti-doping program in AIBA.” All contacts between the IOC and the association are frozen, and financial payments to AIBA are suspended. The IOC said it wants a report by April 30 from the AIBA by on what progress is being made.
Boxing has been contested at every Olympic Games since its introduction to the program in 1904, except for the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, because Swedish law banned the sport at the time. The 2008 Olympics were the final games with boxing as a male only event. The 2016 edition of the Olympics saw controversy in the form of questionable refereeing and scoring.
