It remains uncertain whether boxing belongs to the program of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) wants to continue to check the approval of the sport. Reason is the controversial world association Aiba and its president Gafur Rachimow. The businessman is accused of playing a significant role in organized crime.
On Friday, the IOC Executive Committee in Tokyo ordered to stop all preparations including ticket sales for the tournament. The Aiba may no longer advertise with the Olympic rings, payments to the association has stopped the IOC anyway. A three-member commission of inquiry headed by the Serb Nenad Lalovic is to investigate the case. Lalovic is president of the World Wrestling Association UWW.
The sport is about the following questions: Is Boxing Olympic? Will there be a boxing tournament at the Summer Games in Tokyo in two years? How consistent will the IOC be, which has been putting Aiba under pressure for a year?
On Saturday, IOC President Thomas Bach said: "We want a boxing tournament in Tokyo, and we'll do anything for it." Japan's boxers have just passed a resolution that supports Bach, but sanctioned the Aiba at the same time. "Athletes should not suffer from the mistakes of the officials," said Bach. If it were that easy: In the Aiba generations of boxers suffer from the sometimes criminal machinations of the association bosses.
Haven of corruption
The Aiba has been in twilight since 1986, when former Adidas employee Anwar Chowdhry of Pakistan took over the presidency. Numerous point and referee scandals at World Championships and Olympic Games have since shaped the picture. The number of Olympic gold medals was determined according to the file sometimes even before the respective summer games: about 1988 for Seoul, as both the GDR and the US were awarded two Olympic gold medals - so it came then.
The scandalous circumstances did not change fundamentally from 2006 when Ching-Kuo Wu, an IOC member from Taiwan, took over the presidency. Wu was supported by dubious personalities: the later Aiba Director General Ho Kim from South Korea and the Uzbek Gafour Rachimov, who also has a Russian passport. These shadows Wu never broke.
Rachimov was already described in the 1990s in reports by the FBI and by Interpol as a drug lord in the Central Asian republics. He remained on the Aiba board for almost two decades, for a long time was Vice President of the Asian Olympic Association OCA - under that Olympic Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah from Kuwait, who suspended himself as an IOC member last week and on Wednesday in Tokyo President of the World Federation suspended all 206 national Olympic committees. The sheikh, election worker of Thomas Bach, wants to come back, if he should not be sentenced in the spring in a criminal case in Geneva for serious fraud to a prison sentence.
IOC member Wu has led Aiba into financial chaos. After a coup against him in January Rachimov took over first ad interim and in November at an election congress in Moscow officially the presidency - also elected by the German Boxing Federation (DBV). Its president Jürgen Kyas believes in Rachimov, who has never been charged and convicted, assures his innocence, but remains on the US Treasury's sanction list. Wu, who was locked up by Aiba for life, told the Spiegel newspaper in Tokyo that he did not understand Kyas and his loyalty to Rachimov: "Rachimov is dangerous!"
Why is the presumption of innocence not valid for Rachimov?
The Aiba and Rachimov thanked the IOC Executive Committee on Saturday in an almost submissive tone for acknowledging some of Aiba's progress. Do everything to master the crisis. Once again Rachimov claimed that US sanctions against him were based on false accusations by former political opponents in Uzbekistan. He conceals that he was already being watched by police authorities long before he fell out of favor in Uzbekistan. He had been denied entry by the Olympic host Australia in 2000. Rachimov said he was looking forward to talks with IOC investigator Nenad Lalovic and was ready to share all the information.
The SPIEGEL wanted to know from Bach, why he leads the presumption of innocence only for his friend Sheikh Al-Sabah, although this is indicted in Switzerland and is being investigated in Kuwait because of Olympic money laundering against him. Whether the presumption of innocence does not apply to Rachimov, who points out that he has never been convicted?
Bach said neither yes nor no. These are different cases, he explained. The IOC ethics committee deals with Sheikh Al-Sabah and made recommendations immediately after the indictment in Switzerland, which he followed. On the other hand, Rachimov said, "this is not a personal matter," Bach said, adding that in the criminal case Al-Sabah is the case. It became clear that Rachimov was not able to exercise his office as Aiba president due to the sanctions of the US Treasury Department. He could not travel freely. In addition, the BCV Bank in Lausanne has terminated accounts of the association.
In June 2019, the next IOC General Assembly will be held in Lausanne. At the latest there, the decision on the Olympic boxing tournament in 2020 fall, said IOC sports director Kit McConnell.