MOSCOW: The International Boxing Association says Europe’s top boxing official received a formal warning in a case which highlighted the sport’s power struggles.

Tom Virgets, the executive director of AIBA, said that European Boxing Confederation pres­ident Franco Falcinelli was given the warning last month.

The Italian is a leading power-broker in the troubled world of amateur boxing but was suspended last year after a rift with Uzbek businessman Gafur Rakhimov, who was elected AIBA president in November. Falcinelli was provisionally reinstated later that month. In an AIBA statement accompanying that ruling, he said he would now back Rakhimov. While Falcinelli was suspended, he was re-elected as an AIBA vice-president despite being barred from entering the conference hall.

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2019