The International Olympic Committee said on Friday that it has frozen relations with the International Boxing Association (AIBA) and refused to accredit interim president, Gafur Rakhimov, for the Youth Olympics.
The IOC executive board, meeting in Buenos Aires ahead of the start of the youth games, which include boxing, in the city on Saturday, issued a statement to AFP, saying they were “freezing contacts”.
“The IOC is freezing all contacts with AIBA, except the ones on the working level which are necessary to implement the respective IOC decisions – for this reason Rakhimov will not be accredited for the Youth Olympic Games,” they said. This is only the latest statement in a week in which the IOC has made clear that it is prepared to kick the AIBA out of the Olympic movement and remove boxing from the 2020 Tokyo Games if “governance problems” were not resolved.
On Wednesday, the IOC said “these include the circumstances of the establishment of the election list.”
The IOC did not mention any names, but Rakhimov, who has been linked to organized crime by the US Treasury Department, appears to be a problem. In February, the IOC said they were worried by the nomination of the Uzbek businessman for the AIBA’s interim presidency, which he still took over.
