The President’s Corner

My dear boxers and friends,

While it has been an exciting few weeks since the AIBA Congress and being elected AIBA President, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank the entire AIBA family for your trust and unwavering support.

Furthermore, I wanted to thank you all for the positive discussions and exchanges in Moscow. I especially wanted to thank the AIBA staff, led by CEO Tom Virgets, for their hard work in running the congress and the independent election committee, led by Jost Schmid, who worked tirelessly to ensure that we had the most democratic and transparent election process.

As an organization we have a lot to be proud of, the work we have done together this last year has revitalized AIBA and boxing. As such, I wanted to take this occasion to explain the four areas of work that we have been focusing on:

1)   Governance: After being in the lower end of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF)’s Governance Assessment earlier this year, I can proudly say that with all the work done – as of today – we are now exactly in the middle of all Summer International Federations (IFs). Furthermore, once the changes that were approved at our Congress are implemented, AIBA is expecting to move into the top half of all Summer IFs. I am happy to announce that we have accomplished our mission and exceeded the governance requirements for change.

2)   Anti-Doping: After many problems from the past, I can successfully report that AIBA is now fully compliant with WADA. Furthermore, earlier this year AIBA was among the first IFs to sign with the Independent Testing Agency (ITA) and has been collaborating with the ITA to ensure that all in-competition and out-of-competition testing is done as efficiently as possible. Therefore, with regards to Anti-Doping, we have also accomplished our mission of regaining our WADA compliancy and ensuring clean sport across boxing.

3)   Finance: After being close to insolvency at the end of 2017, I am happy to report that our financial situation is now under control. Furthermore, as of today, AIBA’s cash flow is now positive and will remain stable following the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. While AIBA will have a negative balance for the coming years, it will turn a positive return at a disciplined, controlled and steady rate. Therefore, with regards to finances, everything is under control as we have accomplished our goals of achieving financial stability.

4)   Refereeing & Judging (R&J): After a long period of improvements, our new R&J system was recently implemented at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires and is currently being implemented at the AIBA Women’s World Championships in Delhi. Therefore, I am happy to report that with two successful major events in hand, this is proof that all changes we have implemented are working. At this time, I am happy to report that we have now left the bad past behind and are working with a successful and transparent R&J system. Like any IF, AIBA will continuously seek to improve its refereeing and judging for the future.

More detailed information will be available in these four areas soon, but as you can see we have made great strides forward in such a short period of time; transforming into a sport and an IF that you can all be proud of. I am confident that together, we will be able to continue the good work made in bringing boxing into a brand new era.

Yours in Boxing,

Gafur Rahimov
AIBA President

Click here for the full AIBA News – November 2018

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