Professional Boxers at the Olympics – A Dangerous Gamble

May 28, 2016 Sports

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AIBA (L’Association Internationale de Boxe Amateur) is accredited as an International Sports Federation

(IF) by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to govern boxing at the Olympic Games and all of its qualifying events and tournaments. International Sports Federations are international non-governmental organizations recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as administering one or more sports at world level. While conserving their independence and autonomy in the administration of their sports, International Sports Federations are required to ensure that their statutes, practice and activities conform to the Olympic Charter.

All countries wishing to have their boxers participate in the Olympics and Olympic qualifying events must necessarily have their local national amateur federations affiliated to AIBA. They must conform to AIBA’s rules and regulations. The Guyana Amateur Boxing Association is no exception.
AIBA by its IOC accreditation has the responsibility and duty to manage and to monitor the global running of amateur boxing including the practical organization of events leading up to and during the Games. It is also required to supervise the development of young boxers at every level. It must ensure the promotion and development of the sport, monitoring global administration and guaranteeing the regular organization of competitions as well as respect for the rules of fair play.
In a recent move presumably to control boxing worldwide, both aspects of the sport, professional and amateur, AIBA announced its intention to open Olympic amateur boxing to professional boxers beginning with Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in 2016.
This latest development has been a culmination of many small moves by AIBA to get involved with and presumably control professional boxing. It began with their instructing all national associations to effect changes to their names to delete the word ‘amateur’. Indeed Guyana like every other country, unable to resist the dictates by AIBA for fear of being unlisted and unable to attend Olympic qualifier games had no choice but to acquiesce. The Guyana Amateur Boxing Association was directed to change its name to the Guyana Boxing Association. This was followed by abandoning headgear in certain categories of fighters. Again, although many countries consider this dangerous for young fighters, none could resist the dictates of AIBA. This was then followed by AIBA launching something called the Professional Series of Boxing (PSB) which essentially allows amateurs to compete on AIBA’s professional platform and still compete as amateurs.
Prior to that, boxers who competed more than once professionally, could no longer go back to the amateur ranks, it being well recognized that they were such inherently different levels of the same sport that it has always been considered necessary to keep them apart to allow the proper uninterrupted development of young amateur fighters. An amateur boxer’s participation in AIBA professional competitions, PSB or APB is of course accompanied by them having to sign a five year contract, in itself a glaring conflict of interest, given that AIBA is the governing body for amateur boxing and now self-appointed professional boxing sanctioning body under the PSB and APB promotions and simultaneously signing and promoting professional boxers from whom it derives revenues.
Finally, the latest bombshell on allowing professional boxers into the Olympics has now been announced. Reasonably, if you allow one professional boxer in you must necessarily allow them all in and it will only take a court mandated order emanating from any discrimination suit brought by any professional fighter anywhere in the world to quickly establish this.
So the interest shown by professional champions is natural and immediate. An example of this is the announced willingness of world champions, Manny Pacquiao and Wladimir Klitschko to accept the invitation of Dr. Wu (President of AIBA) to participate in Rio with the special privilege of not having to compete in the preliminary rounds. Should this happen and Dr. Wu is able to push through his ill-advised plan, the young and relatively immature amateur youths in the 147 lbs welterweight category can well find themselves facing the enormous experience and power of Pacquiao. The end result could be extreme injury or even death.
None of these amateur fighters would ever have faced anything like the enormous, explosive power of a Pacquiao. Nothing puts a fighter at greater risk than mismatches. The WBC President, Mauricio Sulaiman is keenly aware that managing disaster in the ring begins with making sure that fighters are not mismatched. Many promoters are willing to put any two fighters together for a show because there are clear financial rewards. The WBC (World Boxing Council), painfully aware of the escalation of the risk of injury in this type of set up, has now established a committee to which an application must be made by promoters for approval of all championship fights. The singular purpose of that committee is to reduce the possibility of injury by ensuring that there are no mismatches.
What AIBA President, Dr. Wu proposes for the Olympics breaches all good sense and risks the health and wellbeing of our young fighters, presumably only for their apparent dream of controlling all boxing and particularly the profits associated with professional boxing. Whilst there has been an enormous outcry worldwide by champions, former champions and trainers, all protests have fallen on deaf ears. Nacho Berestein, trainer of the famous Juan Manuel Marques who scored a stunning six round knockout of Pacquiao in their fourth encounter called Dr. Wu’s plan complete madness.
Berestein, who trains both world champions as well as amateur fighters, cannot understand how AIBA could contemplate a tournament that could be potentially detrimental to our young fighters. Former Olympic and World Heavyweight Champion, Lennox Lewis in a scathing commentary, described it as a ‘Recipe for Disaster”. The WBC’s reaction has been immediate. Its President Mauricio Sulaiman has announced formally that any WBC champion or boxers ranked in the top 15 of the WBC who fights in the Olympic games will be immediately banned from the WBC and stripped of their Titles. The WBC’s position is virtually expected from an organization that is credited with implementing enormous changes over the years to enhance the safety of the sport and one expects that most of the professional sanction bodies are likely to follow suit. Whilst local amateur boxing commissions like our own Guyana Amateur Boxing Association are powerless to protest, this is quickly becoming a matter which must engage the attention of Governments as the dictates of Dr. Wu and AIBA have arrived at a stage where their decisions threaten to endanger the well-being of our young fighters.
Dr. Wu’s plan to copy the entry of NBA players in the Barcelona Olympics in the form of the Dream Team does not seem to have considered that basketball players do not have to hit each other to win the game.
The biggest question it poses is ‘How can the vaunted International Olympic Committee (IOC) stand idly by whilst AIBA and Dr. Wu, empowered exclusively under their “International Federation” status, practice what many see as little more than ‘reckless endangerment’ of the lives of young amateurs boxers.’
Guyana’s experience with the IOC has always been as far as I am aware, excellent. In a study conducted by myself on behalf of the National Sports Commission in 2013/2014, it was clearly established that K. Juman Yassin, who is the President of the Olympic Association in Guyana, consistently goes beyond the call of duty to support all sporting disciplines in Guyana. He has, presumably on behalf of the IOC significantly contributed to the development of amateur boxing in Guyana even having served for a number of years as its President. Surely this development runs contrary to those fine efforts.
Just yesterday Elvis Sanchez, the President of the Boxing Federation of Venezuela added his voice to the protests, describing AIBA’s move as a total crime in allowing fights between young boxers and experienced pro boxers saying “It is like feeding the tigers”.
The Guyana Boxing Board of Control’s sentiments are not too far removed from his. We very strongly reject AIBA’s proposal and call on the National Sports Commission and our Government to monitor this development.
We are very much aware that the final AIBA executive meeting for voting in ratification of this travesty is to take place next week. Our own Steve Ninvalle will have a vote at that meeting. One can only hope that he does not vote in favour of extinguishing the Olympic hopes, dreams and aspirations of young fighters all over the world including Guyana who cannot hope to compete against seasoned professional fighters including World Champions in bouts that will certainly have the potential to damage them for the rest of their lives.
Peter Abdool
President – Guyana Boxing Board of Control
President – WBC Fecarbox
Member – World Boxing Council Board of Governors

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