AIBA Congress 2020 summary: the new President and Constitution

The main AIBA bi-annual event was conducted virtually on December 12-13, 2020, with voting procedures, carried out on the secure Lumi Global platform.

Day 1. Presidential election

With 155 out of 158 voting delegates from eligible AIBA national federations present, the quorum was reached.

The delegates voted in favor of approving the minutes of the 2018 Congress meeting. They also voted to include two new members to the AIBA family,  Andorra and Gibraltar. With these new additions, AIBA now has 202 member federations.

Five candidates stood in the AIBA presidential election: Anas Al Otaiba from the UAE, Umar Kremlev from Russia, Suleyman Mikayilov from Azerbaijan, Mohamed Moustahsane from Morocco, and Boris Van der Vorst from the Netherlands.

Each candidate had time for a final speech before voting started. National Federations had an opportunity to ask questions to the candidates.

The voting process was fully anonymous and monitored by an independent public notary, Edward Gardener. For each round, the delegates had 3 minutes to make their choice.

To win outright, an absolute majority was needed – 78 votes. If no candidate got this number of votes, voting would then go into the next round. From the second round onwards, the candidate with the lowest number of votes would be removed.

Day 2. Constitutional changes

On the second day of the Congress, 130 delegates participated out of 158 eligible National Federations.

The AIBA Congress adopted its new Constitution with an overwhelming majority of 98 votes in favor, 6 votes against, and 26 abstentions.

The new Constitution will give more authority to National Federations, notably as the Presidents of Continental federations will be elected by the Congresses of Continental Confederations. The number of members in the AIBA Board of Directors will be reduced from 32 to 22, with the vast majority representing Confederations. At least 6 Board members have to be women, with athletes also represented.

The new Constitution also clarifies the tasks of AIBA’s corporate bodies and simplifies the structures within AIBA. The Ethics Commission has been granted an extended role. Several financial control mechanisms, including the creation of an internal audit body, have been approved by the Congress and will be implemented in the near future.

Five amendments introduced by the Spanish Boxing Federation, England Boxing and US Boxing were passed, which further extend the powers of Confederations to organize training courses for referees and judges, in addition to boxing competitions. The amendments also specify that only the Congress may dismiss members of the Ethics and Disciplinary Committees while limiting the terms of office for the AIBA President and Board members by taking into consideration the number of years they previously served. The amendments also ensure that the people appointed to serve on the Ethics and Disciplinary Committees by the AIBA Board of Directors, and approved by Congress, are recommended by a suitable independent body.