By Tom Degun in New Delhi

October 6 - C K Wu (pictured), President of the International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA), has claimed that the recent actions of the chief executive of the Amateur Boxing Association of England, Paul King, have not reflected well on the English organisation.



King, who was looking to challenge the Taiwanese for the Presidency at the AIBA Congress in Kazakhstan from November 1-2, came up short in his attempts after failing to secure the 20 required nominations from national associations.

In the run-up to the elections, King was highly critical of AIBA, claiming that they had imposed an "unfair suspension" on more than 70 national federations who were not allowed to attend the Congress.

But Wu said AIBA was totally justified in imposing the suspensions and revealed that King, an Executive Committee member of AIBA, had actually agreed to the decision in a meeting in July in Marrakech.

Wu, now the only eligible candidate for the AIBA Presidency and set for another four-year term, told insidethegames: “All national federations must follow the rules.

"Every national federation knows the deadline for membership fees and 124 of them paid it correctly, without any problem.

"To those federations that didn’t pay, I remind them and I say ‘Please, you have the chance to pay.’

"We give a first reminder, a second reminder and I even send personal reminders, yet still they ignore.

"It is like in the British Government - when citizens don’t pay tax, you encourage them to pay and it is the same system here.

"They should have no privileges not to pay the $250 (£158) when everybody else does.

"We at AIBA must file our financial statements before the deadline and if AIBA must obey the rules, so must the federations.

"It is not about money for me as I am an absolute volunteer and I give all the money from the Presidency funds to the poor countries.

"It is about following the rules and maintaining discipline so that our sport is respected."

Wu, who was elected in 2006 and is a member of the International Olympic Committee, has set out his goals for his next term.

He said: "Under my leadership, I will keep emphasising that without discipline and following the rules, everybody can just do anything and we cannot progress the sport.

"If countries do not follow the rules, why should they then receive free tickets and free accommodation to come to the AIBA Congress like the countries that do follow the rules?

"Mr King is an Executive Committee member and helped approve [the decision not to allow any national federation with non-payment on set deadline of membership fees to attend the 2010 AIBA Congress] so he shouldn’t come back and challenge that afterwards.

"You must respect your own decision.

"Mr King, I feel very sorry for, as he did not have any votes [in his bid for Presidency] from neighbouring Commonwealth countries in Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

"You must ask them why they didn’t support him, not me.

"I didn’t do any campaigning, I didn’t contact any federation - I’m the President so I remain neutral.

"Mr King has the right to try [for Presidency] but I think the result was that only four federations supported him which was a big shock to everyone.

"This has not reflected well on the English boxing federation.

"It is not good and we must all concentrate on contributing to our sport and helping each other - that is the only way forward.

"AIBA was once full of corruption but now we are transparent so everyone can see what is going on and that we have nothing to hide.

"I have started this in the last four years and built this up, but the next four years is about taking this right down to the very roots of the sport."

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