Lausanne (AFP)

The IOC's decisions "aimed to bankrupt AIBA," said American Tom Virgets, the managing director of the International Amateur Boxing Federation (AIBA), dismissed from the organization of the Olympic tournament at the Tokyo-2020 Games for serious governance problems.

At the end of May, due to the many failings of the AIBA (governance, finance, ethics, anti-doping, arbitration), the IOC decided to withdraw from this federation the organization of the Olympic boxing tournament as well as qualifying tournaments. The decision, the first of its kind in Olympic history, is to be formally endorsed next week by the IOC session in Lausanne.

The AIBA, already in great financial difficulties, is thus deprived of the revenues distributed to each Olympic federation, for boxing a sum of 17.5 million USD (15.6 ME) paid after the Games.

"The decisions taken by the IOC were clearly aimed at bankrupting AIBA," said Virgets in a letter last week to members of the AIBA Executive Board, which AFP was able to consult.

"All of AIBA's sources of revenue have been cut," adds Virgets. "Judging by the tone and content of the report of the Commission of Inquiry (IOC), it is clear to me that the decision to suspend AIBA was taken a long time ago and that the information and data we provided were used to identify our vulnerabilities so that the decision would do the most harm to AIBA ".

Faced with financial difficulties, AIBA, which has "less than 400,000 USD on its account", can not even afford to organize an extraordinary congress, as some members of its executive board want.

"Without a serious contribution of money, the organization will be declared insolvent and then justice will take control," adds Virgets.

- 3 employees against 30 in 2016 -

In this letter, Mr. Virgets also indicates that AIBA has had to separate from a large part of its staff and will only have three employees in the future, compared to about 30 at the time of the Rio-2016 Games.

Mr. Virgets' contract will also be broken, "probably this week".

The IOC has suggested that AIBA could be reinstated after the Tokyo Olympics, but on the condition that they do not leave with the current period's framework.

For a source close to the record, "it is also the question of the presence of boxing at the Olympics in Paris-2024 will be played".

A commission of inquiry was set up in December by the IOC, which then decided to freeze the organization of the boxing tournament in Tokyo pending its conclusions.

The arrival at the head of AIBA of the controversial Uzbek businessman Gafur Rakhimov, who has since resigned, has further fueled concerns.

AIBA regularly experiences crisis situations. Pakistan's Anwar Chowdhry, president from 1986 to 2006, was suspended for life in 2007 for financial malfeasance.

Chowdhry was beaten in 2006 by Taiwan's Ching Kuo Wu, who was forced to resign in November 2017.

Mr. Wu, who has always contested the mismanagement accusations against him by Mr. Rakhimov's team, is still a member of the IOC.

? 2019 AFP