Twenty-two of the 43 Americas Boxing Confederation (AMBC) countries will be unable to vote in amateur boxing’s governing body, AIBA’s Congress scheduled for December 12-13.
Of the 22, 10 are Caribbean territories.
Those eligible to vote are Barbados, Cayman Islands, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago.
On the other hand, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Bermuda, Dominica, Haiti, Saint Maarten, Suriname and US Virgin Islands along with Curacao will be ineligible.
According to an email from AIBA’s HQ, seen by this publication, the countries committed infractions to the statutes and laws of AIBA disallowing them to have a say in Congress next month.
Saint Maarten, The Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda, Virgin Islands, Dominica, Anguilla, Bermuda, Haiti and Suriname were named in a letter to the AIBA Ethics and Disciplinary Committees as countries that had their annual AIBA fees paid by the Dominican Republic Boxing Federation (DRBF).
The payment raised concerns as a possible breach of AIBA’s election rules, after the DRBF, which nominated one of the seven candidates vying for President of AIBA, paid the membership fee of the nine countries so they can vote in the December Congress.
In the email, it states that based on the fact that the DRBF paid the membership fee for the eight federations, AIBA’s Election Committee was of the opinion that the members mentioned before shall not be allowed to vote.
AMBC Vice President, Steve Ninvalle went on record Friday and stated that the territories which are unable to vote only have themselves to blame since he feels that AIBA has adequate reason for its stance.
“AIBA does not deny territories from voting unless there is adequate reason. My belief is that AIBA has sufficient justification as to why the territories were deemed ineligible to vote.” Unpaid affiliation fees and other infractions like not competing in certain tournaments will deem a territory ineligible from being a part of AIBA’s Congress.
Ninvalle then pointed out that the territories do have the option to appeal AIBA’s decision.
