The International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA) has given the Korean Amateur Boxing Federation (KABF) until Friday (September 10) to name a new chairman or face suspension. 

"If the KABF doesn't establish a new leadership by September 10, it will be stripped of AIBA membership," said AIBA executive director Kim Ho.

"AIBA made this decision during the recent Youth Olympics in Singapore and has notified the Korean Olympic Committee (KOC)."

If a suspension was imposed it would prevent Korean boxers from taking part in the Asian Games in Guangzhou in November and could even cast a doubt over their particpation at the London 2012 Olympics.

At the last Olympics in Beijing Korea won one medal, a bronze for Kim Jung-Joo (pictured) in the welterweight division.

Any suspension by such a high-profile international governing body could also be an embarrassment at time when Pyeongchang is bidding to host the 2018 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

"The KABF is hurting the development of Korean boxing and the goal of the AIBA," said Kim.

"We normally wouldn't interfere with our member nations' federations, but the KABF's conducts have become unbearable."

The chairman's seat has been vacant since Yoo Jae-joon was dismissed last December.

The KOC withdrew its appointment of Yoo, on the basis of a Seoul court ruling that Yoo should be dismissed for making controversial remarks at a public seminar two years earlier.

Yoo's opponents within the KABF had taken his appointment to court.

Tensions between the KABF and the AIBA date back to November 2006, when, during the election for chairman, Yoo supported Anwar Chowdhry, an opponent to the eventual winner C.K Wu.

Soon after Yoo was elected the KABF chief in January 2009, the AIBA suspended him for 18 months for sending an unauthorised team physician to an international event.

Even without Yoo at the helm, the AIBA continued to pressure the South Korean federation.

In July, the international body relocated the 2010 AIBA Congress from the South Korean city of Busan to Almaty, Kazakhstan, and the 2011 World Championships from Busan to Baku, Azerbaijan.

"If the international body comes down so hard on us, we will be caught in a difficult position," said Choi Jong-joon, secretary general of the KOC.

"The KOC could appeal the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), but the whole procedure will hurt the athletes.

"We're trying to find a reasonable solution before we get to that point."