The English official secured just 10 nominations from national associations, as opposed to the 20 required.

The news emerged tonight in a terse statement from AIBA headquarters in Lausanne, saying that its election committee had "concluded that there was only one eligible candidate for the AIBA Presidency".

This candidate is the incumbent President - Taiwan’s C K Wu.

However, with a month still to go before the AIBA Congress in Kazakhstan on November 1 and 2, a challenge to Wu can still not be completely ruled out.

insidethegames understands that a legal challenge is likely to be lodged with a Swiss civil court in coming days on behalf of a number of national associations who consider themselves to have been unfairly suspended by AIBA.

As first reported by insidethegames, King claimed recently that "more than 70" national federations had not been sent paperwork for the Congress.

He blamed this on “unfair suspension” imposed by AIBA.

With the attendance of so many countries apparently at stake, there is every chance, if the legal challenge succeeds, that attempts may be made to reopen the nomination process to ensure that as many associations as possible are given the opportunity to take part.

In upbeat remarks after the announcement, King thanked the associations who had supported him and said he was "absolutely chuffed" to have made the attempt.

"Now I know I have a lot of friends out there who I wouldn’t otherwise have known about," he said.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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