The case, due to be heard at a Swiss district court in Lausanne, has been lodged on behalf of a number of national boxing associations some of whom are understood to have been suspended from AIBA for non-payment of fees.

AIBA confirmed last night that it had received a summons for the date in question and said there was a list of 13 federations - Bangladesh, Belgium, Brunei, Bulgaria, England, Ethiopia, Laos, FYR Macedonia, Nepal, Romania, Thailand, East Timor and Ukraine - that the lawyers were claiming to represent.

However, it said it had contacted three of the federations - Bangladesh, FYR Macedonia and Ukraine - and all three had denied knowledge of the process.

For the process to take place on the 20, AIBA said, the representing lawyer would have to "submit the proxies for all 13 federations mentioned".

AIBA also said that the process was a response to a previous request for a decision without hearing to suspend its Congress, scheduled to take place in Kazakhstan on November 1 and 2.

This request was "rejected outright".

If the hearing proceeds, the argument is likely to revolve around a possible contradiction in AIBA’s statutes and bylaws.

Article 16 of the association’s statutes states that while "a Member shall be suspended if it is not up to date in paying its dues before an Ordinary Congress convenes; any suspension will be lifted when dues are paid".

Yet Article 15 of the bylaws says that "if a Member is not up to date in paying its dues six months before the Ordinary Congress…it loses its rights to vote at the Congress, even if dues have been paid in the meantime".

The matter has acquired more than internal significance because of a challenge to AIBA President C K Wu (pictured) launched by Paul King, chief executive of the Amateur Boxing Association of England.

This apparently foundered last week when King failed to secure the necessary nominations.

However, such is the number of associations that appear to have been suspended by AIBA that a ruling in their favour in Lausanne could lead to calls for nominations to be reopened.

As reported last month, records seen by insidethegames suggest that, as of July, as many as 72 national bodies had unpaid fees.

AIBA declined at the time to publish a list of these countries, saying it was "an internal matter".

However, Wu has since stated, in an exclusive interview with insidethegames that 124 national federations had paid their membership fees correctly.

Since AIBA has 196 affiliated national federations, this implies that the figure of 72 is correct.

It is understood that a hearing may touch on other issues relating to AIBA’s statutes and bylaws.

For example, Article 16 of the statutes also states that "other Members cannot entertain sporting contact with a suspended Member".

And yet several of the 72 are understood to have had boxers competing at the Commonwealth Games.

On this point, Wu told insidethegames’s Tom Degun recently: "We are out to sanction federations that don’t follow the rules, not individual boxers.

"Federations must follow the rules, but boxers are competing just as boxers.

"They have their careers to think about and do not deserve to be excluded for the failures of their federation.

"The IOC has rules in place that allow boxers from suspended federations to go to the Asian Games.

"That is a protocol we have followed here [at the Delhi Commonwealth Games]."

There is also some disgruntlement at the late circulation of AIBA’s financial statements, which, under Article 24 of the statutes, should be included with formal written notice of the Congress "at least two months before the date of the Ordinary Congress".

A letter to national federations dated October 4 and signed by Ho Kim, AIBA’s executive director, apologises for "the delay in sending all documents which were supposed to be distributed to the members earlier along with the Agenda".

"However,", the letter goes on, "the signed final copy of the external audit report was just received and we were waiting for the final list of eligible National Member Federations entitled to receive these documents".

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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