01.11.2018

Gafur Rakhimov to head AIBA despite horrendous allegations

On 2 and 3 November, Moscow will host the Congress of the International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA).  Most likely, the new head of the federation will be Gafur Rakhimov who is under the US sanctions.
Rakhimov already de facto leads AIBA. In November last year, it became known that the long-term president of the federation Wu Ching-kuo resigned. At first, his post was temporarily taken by the Vice-President of AIBA, Italian Franco Falcinelli, but only until the extraordinary congress in January of this year when Rakhimov was elected.

The candidate from Uzbekistan Gafur Rakhimov seems to dislike the IOC, which, to the extent possible, impedes his victory in the elections. It even threats to exclude boxing from the Olympic programme. This is not officially confirmed yet, but this scenario cannot be excluded. Currently, the IOC is conducting an investigation into AIBA.
The reason for this dislike lies in the fact that the OFAC of the US Treasury included Rakhimov in the sanctions list due to alleged violation of the law. However, the US Treasury, as always, was unable to provide any supporting evidence.
It should be noted that the previous president Wu Ching-kuo headed AIBA since 2006. The reason for his resignation was the sad financial state of the federation as well as frequent judicial scandals at various competitions including the Olympic Games.
Our boxing leaders support Rakhimov. The head of the Russian Boxing Federation, Umar Kremlev, spoke of Rakhimov in explicitly positive terms - as a person who, in a short time, paid off AIBA debts and in many respects solved the refereeing problems. The majority of national federations are ready to vote for Rakhimov. The world boxing community is also on his side, despite the sanctions and tough position of the IOC. It is obvious that even if they don’t exclude boxing from the Olympic family, they will considerably spoil the nerves.
“We are moving forward in terms of increasing the transparency of our federation, AIBA leadership, finance, boxing and refereeing. This is in line with my promise to the AIBA Executive Committee, the IOC and national federations to modernize the AIBA so that it remains a worthy member of the Olympic family,” said Rakhimov.