President of the Caribbean Boxing Federation (CABOFE), Peter Abdool has voiced his grave concerns with respect to the International Amateur Boxing Association’s (AIBA) decision to launch their league of professional boxers which will be allowed to compete at the Olympics Games.
Abdool who is also the president of the Guyana Boxing Board of Control (GBBC) has joined the growing number of the world’s professional boxing organizations and outstanding promoters that have criticized the plan for AIBA headed by its president Dr. Ching-Kuo Wu to include select pro boxers in the Olympics beginning in Brazil in 2016.
According to Abdool, Olympic boxing has traditionally been closed to professional boxers for many reasons principal among them are safety issues.
The CABOFE president pointed out that unlike many other professional disciplines admitted to the Olympics such as basketball, the vast difference in experience between the professionals and the amateurs results in at worst, a great disparity in points.
In boxing however which is a contact sport, the difference could result in serious bodily injury, permanent disability or even death.
Quite apart from this, the pro league that AIBA advocates is hinged on amateur and professional boxers being able to compete in the Olympics provided that they sign with AIBA.
Abdool opined that AIBA is using the authority granted by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as its International Federation for boxing to impose its will on young amateur fighters and seasoned professionals by the granting or withholding of access for an opportunity to participate in the Olympics.
In return for that access, the fighter must sign with them. In the global arena of ethical and fair competition, this would be regarded as extremely manipulative and coercive behaviour and in Abdool’s opinion cannot be categorized as less than a most unfair trading practice as the Olympic medal remains a coveted prize for all athletes.
The CABOFE head added that AIBA seeks to completely monopolize both aspects of boxing leading to the detriment of professional boxing promoters and professional boxing organizations the world over.
In light of all of this, he admits to being startled that the IOC has not stepped in to arrest the process as he feels that at the end of the day the issue has the potential to eventually bring the IOC into great disrepute.
Abdool said that AIBA has constructed a scheme to control all aspects of global boxing for its own monetary gain which he said is hardly in keeping with the IOC’s noble objectives and he suspects probably breaches both the spirit and intent of the code of ethics that governs the behaviour of IOC appointed International Federations (IF).
Whilst recognizing that the eventual outcome will likely be decided by various courts across the world, Abdool declared that CABOFE and the GBBC must join with the World Boxing Council (WBC) and its President Jose Sulaiman, the European Boxing Union (EBU), the African Boxing Union (ABU), The British Boxing Board (BBB), The North American Boxing Federation (NABF), the Asian Boxing Council, the WBO, legendary promoters, Don King and Gary Shaw and numerous other concerned boxing promoters and boxing organizations worldwide in condemning the intended admittance of Professional Boxing to the Olympics as well as AIBA’s monopolistic behaviour and apparen
