AIBA: No evidence of active interference in results

“Unprofessional relationships” within AIBA created an atmosphere of collusion between senior management and judges that undermined boxing at last year’s Rio de Janeiro Olympics, the governing body said in a statement yesterday.

It added, however, that an investigation committee had found no evidence of active interference in the results after carrying out a total of 50 interviews over a four-month period.

“An unwelcome axis of influence and sole decision-making had been created and used by former Senior Management that led to a lack of due process being carried out,” AIBA president Ching-kuo Wu said.

“Whilst there is no evidence that this had a direct influence on results in Rio, if best practice is not followed 100 percent of the time by our officials and R&Js (referees and judges), that is unacceptable.”

AIBA said the 36 Rio referees and judges, who were sidelined pending the investigation, would now be reintegrated on a case-by-case basis. The tournament in August was embroiled in controversy surrounding a new ‘10-point must’ scoring system, with allegations by some boxers that they had been robbed of victory.

Ireland’s world bantamweight champion Michael Conlan called AIBA “cheats” after he lost on points to Russia’s Vladimir Nikitin in a quarter-final. AIBA also dropped a number of judges and referees during the competition, after finding that “less than a handful” of the decisions from 239 bouts reviewed were not at the level expected.

The organisation’s French executive director Karim Bouzidi was also reassigned to a new role.

The statement spoke of a “lack of proper procedural norms” due to “a concentration of decision-making power and the assigning of roles assumed by former senior management that had a detrimental impact on in-competition best practice.”

An automated Swiss Timing system will now assign officials to matches, with all five judges’ scorecards used to determine the winner of a bout instead of just three chosen at random by a computer.

“There is no evidence that the reallocation of medal rankings is required for Rio 2016

“But AIBA will be researching the feasibility of processes for the appeal of decisions in the future,” it said in the statement.

“The subjectivity of scoring is part of what makes the sport unique, and the nature of the contest means that strong opinions are formed by teams and fans, but that should not impact negatively on the integrity of the officials,” AIBA said.

The 981-word report concluded: “AIBA has taken important steps for the sake of boxing and is determined to learn from the past in order to build positive, enduring legacies for the sport.”