"The time is always right to do what is right." — Martin Luther King Jr.
A photo of recently dethroned heavyweight champion Leon Spinks sitting on a @RollsRoyce in Monaco, 1979 #boxing #history
Under
pressure by Olympic officials to address possible financial problems in
his organization, the president of boxing’s international governing
body in 2015 ordered an investigation by the accounting firm Price Waterhouse Coopers.
The resulting report revealed irregularities so widespread that the auditors suggested the federation find a criminal lawyer.
It
was unclear if the federation did so. In fact, the existence of the
report is not widely known because the president of the federation never
released it, not even to the executive board that oversees him and the
sport.
While
portions of the report have been described by some news outlets, a full
copy, recently obtained by The New York Times, reveals bookkeeping
shortfalls and raises questions about the management of one of the most
prominent Olympic sports.
The
investigators focused on a $10 million loan in 2010 from a private
company in Azerbaijan to help pay for a new boxing league in North
America. The loan was never paid back, and investigators could not
account for how more than $4.5 million of the money was spent. The
federation, which goes by the acronym AIBA, could not say where the
missing money went.
The
federation, which is based in Switzerland, also did not properly
account for the losses on its books, possibly breaking the law.
These
and other concerns led the investigators at PricewaterhouseCoopers to
write, “It is recommended that legal counsel be sought by AIBA as the
actions, and nonactions, of some of the directors may contravene”
several articles in the Swiss Criminal Code.
Amateur
boxing has long been considered rife with corruption, with frequent
accusations of match fixing, doping and outright bribery and fraud.
After the Rio Games in August, all 36 boxing referees and judges were
suspended over questionable calls in matches there.
The
39-page investigative report, however — amplified by interviews with
about a dozen current and former AIBA employees — is one of the fullest
accountings of the sport’s financial troubles, which critics suspect
stem from corruption.
The
genesis of the audit dates to 2015, when Ching-kuo Wu, the president of
AIBA, fired his deputy, Ho Kim, after an internal revolt by AIBA staff
members who opposed him.
Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee,
himself under increasing pressure to address corruption and clean up
the image of international sports, then ordered Mr. Wu to look into the
wayward $10 million loan. The I.O.C. holds considerable sway over AIBA,
which runs boxing at the Olympics, and Mr. Wu is also on the I.O.C.’s
executive board.
Mark
Adams, a spokesman for the I.O.C., said Mr. Wu was asked to “carry out a
full, transparent and independent audit.” The I.O.C., he said, “has
made it clear with the Olympic Agenda 2020 reforms that we expect good
governance and transparency from all sporting organizations.”
According
to a copy of the original loan agreement, obtained by The Times from a
member of AIBA’s executive committee who was disappointed with Mr. Wu’s
lack of transparency, Mr. Wu personally signed for the loan, which was
made to an AIBA subsidiary.
Yet AIBA is unable to explain why it
borrowed money from a company with no obvious ties to boxing.
In
a statement to The Times, AIBA said it was looking into the reports of
problematic bookkeeping at the boxing venture in North America, but it
suggested Mr. Kim was to blame because he oversaw that project.
AIBA
said that the investigation, which PricewaterhouseCoopers finished more
than a year ago, was a draft and that a final version would be
completed in a few months.
The
loan was made by Benkons MMC, a conglomerate based in Baku, Azerbaijan,
that seemingly had no sports-related businesses in its fold.
