Dubai: All is not well again between the warring International Boxing Association (AIBA) and the World Boxing Association (WBA).
Mohammed Moustahsane, the interim President of the AIBA, has been accused of risking the organisation’s future by agreeing to work more closely with one of the main professional bodies in the sport.
AIBA Executive Committee member Eyup Gozgec said a possible partnership with the WBA could “perhaps fully end AIBA as an association once and for all” and this has led to further fissures between the sporting bodies.
In a scathing letter to the interim president of AIBA, the head of the Turkish Boxing Federation has claimed that Moustahsane was part of group which “orchestrated the end of AIBA with the manipulations that started in 2016 and the scheme you all designed in Moscow to push [former President CK] Wu out of AIBA”.
Gozgec believes an attempt to closer align with the WBA is financially motivated and that Moustahsane was “dragging AIBA into this adventure to find a tenuous reason for your excuse to find the money for AIBA, where it is crystal clear that this decision will open up new business opportunities for some people”.
Full of inaccuracies: Moustahsane
On his part, Moustahsane has dismissed the allegations made by Gozgec, claiming his letter was “full of inaccuracies” and that working with the WBA “has absolutely nothing to do with the resignation of former president CK Wu, the election by the Congress of Rakhimov in November 2018 and the decision issued by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to suspend AIBA”.
The Moroccan, who will continue as interim president of the AIBA until elections take place in December, said in a statement that there are “no personal interests” in the cooperation with the WBA.
AIBA and the WBA announced earlier this month that they had agreed to work together to make improvements in boxing in three areas, namely development, competition and ethics.
Moustahsane said it is designed “to make a path for amateur boxers for their further development and the prolongation of their career in professional boxing”, but some within the executive committee have criticised the move.
Gozgec has been leading the opposition and threatened potential legal action if AIBA continues in its current direction. “While you should be working towards overcoming all these negative situations and obstacles, we are witnessing this new adventure you are dragging AIBA into, to perhaps fully end AIBA as an association once and for all,” his letter has stated.
