Istanbul, Turkey—The beleaguered International Boxing Association, the international federation for amateur boxing, plunged deeper into trouble as Boris van der Vorst, the lone opponent to the controversial Russian president of the association, was disqualified from the elections scheduled for Friday here.
The IBA Interim Nomination Unit, formed only this year, disqualified Van der Vorst and four other candidates for the IBA Board of Directors one day before elections at the Wow Convention Center in this ancient city.
The reasons given were “ participation in another international boxing organization, prohibited collaboration between candidates and electoral campaigning outside the electoral period”.
The decision came after the IBA Disciplinary Committee declared the five candidates “Not Guilty” of the same charges only a day before.
However, the Nomination Unit said it makes its decisions “independent of the IBA Disciplinary Committee, since the Nomination Unit pronounces itself only on the eligibility of candidates and not on disciplinary matters”.
This leaves incumbent president Russian Umar Kremlev, 39, as the lone candidate for the top position.
IBA has been suspended by the International Olympic Committee for various concerns, including governance, financial transparency and integrity issues in its tournaments. The boxing tournament in the Tokyo Olympics was organized and run by the IOC Task Force as a result.
The IOC has scrapped boxing from the Olympic program in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympiad pending resolution of the various issues raised by the Olympic body.
Van der Vorst and company are appealing the decision with the Court of Arbitration in Sport based in Switzerland.
ABAP president Ed Picson, who arrived for the IBA Congress Thursday afternoon said “I am shocked at this development.
While I still have to find out what exactly is the problem, I think the timing is suspect and very unfortunate”. Meanwhile, van der Vorst has quoted the IOC as saying “ we are closely monitoring the developments in IBA”.
