AIBA boss Wu suspended as bankruptcy fears grow

International Boxing Association (AIBA) president Wu Ching-kuo has been suspended over allegations of financial mismanagement.

Wu has controlled Olympic boxing's governing body since 2006 and even ran for the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) presidency in 2013 when he lost to Thomas Bach.

The 70-year-old still has a position on the IOC's executive board and served on the evaluation committee for Rio 2016.

But his tight hold on AIBA has been weakening all year as the organisation's dire financial position has become clearer.

This summer, several members of the organisation's executive committee - now calling themselves the interim management committee - passed a vote of no confidence in Wu and tried to sack executive director William Louis-Marie.

Already fighting attempts to oust him in the Swiss courts, Wu dismissed the moves as "unlawful" and promised to continue his battle to keep control of AIBA.

But that contest appears to be over now after AIBA's disciplinary commission voted unanimously to suspend him, with immediate effect and no right of appeal, on Monday.

In a statement, the commission said its decision followed complaints from 11 members of the executive committee and Wu was found to be in breach of several disciplinary codes and statutes.

It then listed the four main complaints against Wu: his attempt to dismiss opponents on the executive commission, taking commercial decisions without approval, misleading the media and national federations about AIBA's finances and blocking an attempt to organise a vote of no confidence against him.

Of these, it is the Taiwanese sports official's approach to business that is the most serious as AIBA is now on what the disciplinary commission described as the "verge of bankruptcy".

According to the disciplinary commission, AIBA is now £11.6million in debt "without any management or commercial reason" and has not been able to persuade auditors KPMG to sign off on its 2016 accounts.

But on top of AIBA's cash crisis, the federation has also been on the ropes after a series of bad decisions ruined last year's boxing competition at the Rio Olympics.

Wu will now be replaced by an interim president, most likely to be the organisation's most senior vice president, Franco Falcinelli, the former head of the Italian boxing federation.