AMATEUR BOXING’S WORLD governing body Aiba has been plunged further into crisis, with a number of its members intent on removing controversial president Wu Ching-kuo now indicating they want him impeached.
As reported by Sean Ingle in The Guardian, members of Aiba’s interim management committee (IMC), which was set up last week following an overwhelming vote of no confidence the organisation’s president, will go to court in Switzerland on Wednesday to argue the case that they should run the organisation in Wu’s stead for the next three months, this before an extraordinary congress rules on Wu’s future within the organisation.
Executive committee member Pat Fiacco told The Guardian: “We are taking legal action against president Wu in order to ensure Aiba funds are protected and are not abused. We have asked the court to ensure the IMC can manage Aiba in the interim period until an extraordinary congress can be held, and that Dr Wu’s access to funds is blocked.
“We fear he may be using Aiba money to pay his personal legal bills.
This whole process is about impeaching president Wu for what we believe is financial mismanagement of Aiba.
It was the same British newspaper which last month broke the story that the organisation was at risk of bankruptcy after demands from Azerbaijani and Chinese company that Aiba immediately repay millions of pounds in loans and investments – money which the organisation reportedly does not have, despite Wu’s insistence that it remains on sound financial footing.
In recent months, the governing body’s treasurer and financial director have both resigned in acrimonious circumstances.
This is merely the latest controversy to plague the organisation since last year. At Rio 2016, Irish boxer Michael Conlan accused Aiba and its president of corruption following a string of dubious decisions awarded to fighters. Conlan’s expletive remarks arrived after his own exit to Russia’s Wladimir Nikitin in what remains one of the most bizarre and unfathomable decisions since Roy Jones was robbed of Olympic gold at Seoul 1988.
The Aiba World Boxing Championships will take place in Hamburg later this month, with five Irish fighters involved.
Sean Ingle’s full article on the latest developments can be read on The Guardian’s website.
