AIBA Statement on the situation with Boxing Federation of India and the AIBA Men’s World Boxing Championships
April 29th, 2020 / IBA
AIBA has taken note of the press statement by the Boxing Federation of India and would like to clarify the situation as follows.
Yesterday, AIBA announced Belgrade as a host city of 2021 AIBA Men’s World Boxing Championships.
In 2017, the tournament was awarded to India, and a Host City Agreement was signed in January 2019. As per this agreement, half of the host fees were due and payable on 1 December 2019. But as New Delhi did not fulfil its obligations to pay the host fee as mentioned in the Host City Agreement, despite numerous reminders by AIBA and after having been offered multiple options to settle their obligations, AIBA had no choice but to terminate the contract in April 2020.
The decision by AIBA was also prompted by the fact that almost two-thirds of the Host Fee due by BFI for having hosted the 2018 AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships remains outstanding to date, more than 18 months after the event. This host fees should have been paid by BFI in summer 2018. AIBA showed a lot of patience and comprehension, agreeing on numerous successive repayment plans, which were never respected by BFI.
AIBA also disputes the reasons given by BFI for not paying their dues to AIBA. Since June 2019, Serbia is no longer on the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force; BFI managed to make some payments to AIBA in the course of winter 2020.
In the current situation, AIBA cannot take the risk to suffer further losses caused by BFI’s failure to comply with its obligations.
