Excluded AIBA presidency candidate lodges CAS appeal

[October 10, 2018]    BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Kazakhstan's Serik Konakbayev, a vice president of the international boxing association (AIBA), has filed an urgent appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against his exclusion as a presidential candidate, CAS said on Tuesday.

Tony Yoka of France (R) fights Ivan Dychko of Kazakhstan during their Men's Super Heavy final at the AIBA World Boxing Championship in Doha October 15, 2015. REUTERS/Naseem Zeitoon Picture Supplied by Action Images/File Photo

Konakbayev, who also heads the Asian boxing confederation, had planned to run against interim president Gafur Rahimov -- currently the only candidate -- at AIBA's elections next month.

Yet the association's election committee did not include his name as a candidate, saying at the time that Konakbayev did not get the required 20 letters of support from federations.

"The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has registered an urgent appeal filed by Mr Serik Konakbayev... against the decision taken by the AIBA Election Committee dated 1 October 2018 in which Serik Konakbayev’s name was not included on the list of candidates standing for election for the role of AIBA President which is scheduled to take place on 2-3 November 2018," CAS said in a statement.

It is unclear on what grounds Konakbayev is appealing. Reuters has contacted AIBA for comment.

AIBA has been in turmoil for several years and its former president Wu Ching-kuo was suspended in 2017 before stepping down over governance and finance issues.

He was briefly replaced by Franco Falcinelli before Uzbek businessman Rahimov became interim president in January.

Rahimov, however, is on the United States Department of the Treasury's sanctions list "for providing material support" to a criminal organization, according to the U.S. body. [nL8N1WJ6EH]

Rahimov strongly denies the claim but the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has told AIBA to fix what it said was a "grave" situation regarding its governance and "the establishment of the election list."

The IOC warned AIBA last week that failure to do so could result in the sport losing its Olympic spot at the 2020 Tokyo Games.

(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Toby Davis)

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