My dear boxers and friends,

It gives me great pleasure to address you this month and provide you with insight into the progress that our sport and our organization is making. Following the election in January, when you put your trust in me as your leader, I have been working hard for boxing and for all of you to ensure that our sport overcomes the challenges brought upon us by the past leadership.

My days and nights have been consumed by building an AIBA that we can all be proud of; an AIBA that is transparent and democratic, an AIBA that encompasses the values of the Olympic Movement and clean sport, and an AIBA that has the means and the plan to progress forward.

As many of you know, this is a very important time for our sport. In the coming months, AIBA will be having elections for all positions in the Executive Board. Already the administration has done a good job of providing clear guidelines for this process. Personally, I believe that this is very important for our sport, because for the first time in our history we are not only providing transparency and good governance guidelines but we are ensuring that they are being followed.

Our AIBA regulations regarding the elections are now very clear. They state that the list of official candidates, who have met the eligibility requirements and approval of the AIBA Election Committee must be published one month before the congress, this means on October 3rd.

I will therefore ask everybody in and around AIBA to respect our regulations and wait for this date to comment on who could be running for which positions, etc. Let’s not start to let speculation interfere or dominate our democratic process.

While I am sure that the AIBA Member Associations will not be influenced by any rumours floating around in emails or news on various sports websites, it is important for us all to remember that we will make our choices based on what we – and only we – think will be the best for Boxing worldwide. AIBA Member Associations do not need to be told by anybody for whom they should vote or not vote. So, while I deeply appreciate all the support letters that I have received from so many of you, I strongly recommend us all to wait for the October 3rd announcement of the official and approved candidates for all positions, incl. President. You will then have a full month to hear from any candidate, to understand their various programmes and positions so that you are all fully equipped to make your choice in Moscow in early November.

Now, as we look to the future, I would like to conclude by sharing with the AIBA family this following thought: For over 20 years AIBA has been my life and I would like you all to rest assured that I would never in any way, shape or form put our wonderful sport in jeopardy. I have always put boxing first and I intend to do that in the future. I look forward to working with all of you as we continue moving our sport forward!

Yours in Boxing,
Gafur Rahimov,
Interim President of AIBA

I am very interested in hearing your ideas and opinions about the future of our organisation and our sport as a whole. This newsletter will be sent on a monthly basis, but in the meantime, I very much encourage you to get in touch via interimpresidentoffice@gmail.com 

See here the full newsletter!

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