Serik Konakbayev received a further boost in his battle for the presidency of world boxing after the Court of Arbitration for Sport announced Tuesday he could stand for election against Gafur Rakhimov.
The International Boxing Association (AIBA) had disqualified former Kazakh boxer Konakbayev because he failed to submit the required nomination forms from 20 federations by the September 23 deadline.
Konakbayev lodged an appeal with CAS and Tuesday's decision by sports' top arbitration court means he can now stand against Rakhimov in the November 2-3 election in Moscow.
“CAS has upheld Serik Konakbayev's appeal,” said a CAS statement.
“Accordingly, AIBA is ordered to include Serik Konakbayev in the list of presidential candidates standing for election at the next AIBA Congress, scheduled to take place on 2-3 November 2018 in Moscow.”
Rakhimov, who has vehemently denied US Treasury allegations that he is linked to “transnational criminal organisations”, had been left as the only candidate for presidency of the AIBA -- a prospect which concerned the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to the extent it threatened “freezing contacts” with the AIBA.
Without naming Rakhimov, the IOC expressed concern with the AIBA election process and has threatened to remove boxing from the Olympic Games.
CAS said Tuesday the AIBA Election Committee “treated all candidates equally and acted in good faith”.
But it added: “However, the Panel emphasized that the Election Committee unduly refused the nominations returned on a wrong form by several federations in support of their candidate, while such nominations should have been considered as being validly expressed.
“Therefore, the Panel acknowledged that Serik Konakbayev reached the threshold of 20 nominations supporting his candidature for the AIBA Presidency within the relevant time limit.”
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