Hi all Members

(sorry for the delay I have been awaiting the team selection from NZOC)

Common Wealth Games Team

As explained previously the Board of BNZ has had little to do with the process regarding Boxer and Support team selection due to the process put in place by the previous management. Where the Board has taken issue is with the whole HP set up where it has been apparent that a rather closed house policy has been adopted and due to this policy, the choice of participants whether competing or support personnel has been limited to a select few. This will be addressed in the future.

Where we are at now is; based on recommendations from the HP Convenor the NZOC has chosen a top five group of athletes to represent us These people are:

David Nyika, Ritchie Hadlow, Patrick Mailata, Ryan Scaife and Alexis Pritchard.

Three further athletes have been added to the team via the re allocation process where extra Athletes may be added to some sport categories.

These athletes are:

 Tasman Benny, Troy Garton and Leroy Hindley.

Congratulations to the team members chosen from BNZ.

The support personnel so far chosen are:

Cameron Todd and Harry Otty.

The lead up process will now begin with the team attending a Training camp in Canberra.

BNZ has allocated funds to assist with preparation.

Colorado trip

As part of the Common Wealth Games build up the HP people selected a team to travel to Colorado to further attempt to qualify for the CWG’s.

The Board of BNZ has not received any report from this trip.

Business

The Executive of BNZ welcome Cathy Meehan to the Board of BNZ the successful candidate to replace the vacated position held by Ken Clearwater.

In the meantime, Mr Maru Samuels has retired from his position and this has been filled by the successful candidate from Southland Rachel Henry. (one other applicant)

Executive Meeting Auckland February 8^th

Finance.

 The BNZ financial position is sound with a reasonable financial buffer in the bank. However, it is mostly income received from Sports Betting that keeps us afloat. There is no guarantee that this income will continue to flow in, the Board of BNZ recognise this and now have a dedicated Funding manager who will attempt to access other potential income streams. The monies received from Sport NZ are not sufficient to run the Office so it is imperative we find other income.

Portfolios.

This meeting was primarily to discuss the future of the HP Portfolio and the on-going problems between the Portfolio manager and the Board of BNZ. Unfortunately, the Portfolio manager did not turn up so the Board without his inclusion discussed and adopted in principle a new Terms of Reference for the HP Portfolio. The new Terms of Reference will be a substantially more robust document defining roles and obligations in a much clearer and robust manner.

Nomination forms will be sent out to all Associations once the Terms of Reference is adopted by the Executive

The new terms of reference will come into effect on the first of April 2018.

International

Below is a transcript of Dr John McKay’s report from the AIBA Extra-Ordinary Conference held in Dubai and the Oceania meeting prior to the Conference.

OCEANIA MEETING Jan 26^th.

Our meeting commenced 9.10am with Ted Tanner opening the meeting with a welcome; May from Nauru; Milford from Samoa, Mapu from American Samoa; John from PNG, Jacque from Vanuatu, Gary from Aus and yours truly. We all had met the day before on the tour arranged by Gary.

Ted and Mapu as AIBA members filled us in with a brief history of AIBA’s troubles and reasons for the meeting on Sat.:                                                                                                                      1) Where the Pro concept took precedence over Amateurs. Doha 2016 which was the first of the Olympic qualifiers for Rio and the WSB and APB boxers were not allowed to be beaten. 2) 2016 Asian/Oceania Olympic qualifier considered the most disgraceful cheating citing David Nyika’s v/bad draw being manipulated and final bout at 91Kg where the Russian got the nod and shouldn’t have. Thomas Bach IOC Head walked out and refused to present the medals.                                                                                                                                                         3) The many questionable results at the Rio Olympics caused Wu to stand down 5 Star R/Js participating in Rio.                                                                                                                                             4) The financial issues and Mr Wu stating finances were fine at meeting in Lausanne, later in 2017 shown that AIBA owed the Chinese $19mill., AZE 10mill; KPMG later notified Confederations there were debts of more than 35mill. It would appear that from 2006 most of the sports grants were under the control of Mr Wu. 1.25mill spent by WU in court costs to stop losing President’s position, current audit plus forensic audit cost $500,000 so far, any more –who knows?                                                                                                                                          5) IOC not happy about AIBA’s governance, financial status, the number of weight categories and Male/Female ratio in numbers and weight divisions to be reduced.

In other words, AIBA is in a critical situation with IOC who could well throw Boxing out of the Olympics! They are to-date less than happy with the recent response(s) they have received from AIBA. Perhaps there may be NO boxing in Tokyo!

OTHER ITEMS:

Youth Olympics 2018 – all 5 Confederations will be represented, that includes Oceania.

Oceania Qualification Champs – Apia, Samoa 18-28 May; both male and female.

Road to Buenos Aires Camp - Apia, Samoa 18-28 May.

AIBA Star 1and 2 Coach Certification Course, same time as Development T/Camp.

AIBA R/Js Star 1 Certification course together with “Round Robin” event same time as Youth Champs.

AIBA Med Certification and ITO certification same time as Champs being held.

Tri-apatite Entries to be pushed by Ted Tanner at next Ex meeting of AIBA – all agreed.

AIBA Meeting held on Jan 27^th

  EXTRAORDINARY MEETING RITZ CALTON GRAND BALLROOM 9.00am.

Can I say this would be one of the most bazaar meeting I have been associated with.                                            The interim President Franco Falcinelli opened the congress welcoming the delegates to Dubai and then asked the UAE Boxing President to formally welcome us all.

Usual roll call – longwinded and took an age to get all 109 Assn’s to say yes/present. The vast number of different languages amongst the delegates was a major factor even with 6 language translations available.

The reason I said bazaar was because this meeting was unconstitutional in every way, there was no agenda until the day before, no details of the proposed amendments to the AIBA statutes at all! I did not know that Falcinelli was going to resign at this meeting and new person voted in!   

Falcinelli’s (AIBA’s interim President) report spoke of the issues he had trying to regain confidence with AIBA’s stake holders, Sponsors and other organizations that were intimately involved. He spoke about the justice and consequences and that Wu had misrepresented the philosophies of AIBA particularly the financial debt that the organisation was in. It was an impassioned speech asking delegates at the meeting to be patient they were working hard to change the administration and put finances back in better shape. He stated this was ‘a dark chapter Place’. Several changes have been made putting certain people with experience/expertise in place in various areas. In essence trying to bring back a sense of transparency, expertise putting trustworthy people back in prime positions – a great ideology – trust, credibility, transparency all of the good things, seriously it was sick making. Quoting Falcinelli ‘a dark chapter in our sport what they were not’. He continued in this way - doom and gloom, but getting rid of CK Wu was the way forward to make positive changes for AIBA.

Approval of previous minutes; done v/little discussion.

Approval of new memberships: 2 Assn’s were accepted; Eastern Sudan and Palau (Oceania).

Will be interesting as Palau has 2 boxers competing currently – it does give one more country for Oceania.

Vote for CK Wu to continue as honorary President of AIBA; absolutely denied –Unanimous!

John Piacco an American   Pat Fiacco from Canada really showed Wu’s bad side prior to the vote it was detailed impassioned and really demonstrated Mr Wu for being a devious SOB, a slam dunk as he had quotes, notes from sponsors a number of key people who were able to discredit C K Wu’s credibility. It was an assassination!  

Amendments to AIBA statutes; there were some 10 amendments to the statutes presented – no prior indication as to what they were – they were screened and two Ex members proceeded to tell us what they were about and justified the proposals, my eyes glazed over with all the info presented. They continued to present the amendments ad nauseam, consequently I abstained voting – in hind-site I should have objected, I was one of three who abstained. 

Tokyo Olympics 2020: As you have already been informed IOC want to reduce the number of boxers in the event and also increase the number of female competitors in boxing. Mc Connell of IOC spoke at the meeting discussing the reduction of athletes per se and boxing need to consider the reduction put forward; 310 events 10,500 athletes -5new sports involved and women’s events need to be increased. Gender equality! In light of the current situation between IOC and AIBA one has to ask where is boxing going as far as Olympic participation is concerned??

 Pat Fiacco responded v/well but I feel IOC are not confident that Boxing AIBA have given them the confidence to continue having Boxing in the Olympics. IOC want reduction in numbers overall in boxing; greater female participation and reduced weight categories. Not a good look for Boxing. McConnell was adamant about reduced numbers!

Presentation of Future AIBA Management Plan; Restructure of the various programs within AIBA is mooted with (hopefully) greater transparency within the organisation. No details as yet, give them time.

Additional business; What a finale – Falcinelli gets on the stage and tells everyone how hard the last few months have been as interim President and regretfully has to resign as President he needs to spend more time with his family. That’s good so the delegates need to vote for a new interim President; Gafur Rackimov as he is the longest standing V/President in AIBA; actually, he is the HONARARY V/P for WSB not elected! What an absolute load of crock! We have gone from one fire to another. Mr Rackimov a multi- millionaire was refused to enter Australia for 2000 Olympics and London 2012.  We have a problem here, acceptance from IOC and credibility from the various sponsors. He lives in Dubai and is mates with Putin – I have to ask what do IOC feel about this guy as head of AIBA. I have to say regrettably I abstained from voting, I saw at least three people leave the room rather than be involved.

I am not confident that AIBA will be part of the Olympic movement if AIBA continue in this vein.

Yours John McKay.

Latest News regarding AIBA:

All IOC contracts with AIBA have been frozen, along with all financial payments to AIBA, which is expected to produce a further report by the end of April.

“The IOC reserves the right to ­review the inclusion of boxing in the programs of the Youth Olympics 2018 and Tokyo 2020,” Bach said, adding the IOC would be freezing all contacts with AIBA, “excluding the ones on a working level necessary to implement the respective IOC decisions”, with the Olympic body’s chief ethics and compliance officer.

This is not good reading and will seriously impact on our sport down here regarding Olympic Solidarity funding etc as well as the obvious risk of exclusion of Boxing from the Tokyo Olympics.

Yours, Steve H.

Communications BNZ.