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Controversy erupts in world boxing over referring
Italian team blasts IBA over poor selection of judges and referees after their boxer lost through knockout
Controversy broke out at the IBA women’s boxing world championships here on Tuesday as Italian top seed Assunta Canfora (63kg) was shockingly ousted through a knock out verdict against Colombian Camilo Bravo Camila Gabriela after just 37 seconds in the round of 16. A teary Assunta left the ring in a huff before the Denmark referee Kent Hansen declared the result even as the Italian coaches vociferously protested from the red corner.
A fuming Italian head coach Renzini Emanuele blasted the International Boxing Association (IBA) for "poor quality of refereeing and judging in every tournament.” He raised questions over the election of ring officials.
“I've been doing this job for 20 years and my eyes have seen a lot of things wrong with referees and judges. This is our biggest problem but it seems to be hard to fix and I don't understand why?” said Emanuele.
“All of us in the world boxing movement know that there are referees and judges capable of doing their job, and also there are those who are not capable of doing it but these incapable ones continue to be called to all competitions. Is it political?”
It was a fast-engaging bout and Assunta seemed to be calling the shots at the start before Gabriela stepped up her attack. In the first round, Assunta received a count and the fight was stopped in Gabriela’s favour. Assunta appeared in a state of shock with the result even as the Italian coaches protested and asked the judges to intervene but the bout was by then awarded to Brazil. Upset over the result, Assunta and Italy team walked off the ring.
“There was no reason to stop the fight because our athlete was winning the round. She just suffered a very normal blow, just like her opponent suffered other blows with the same effectiveness, it was just a clear error by the evaluation referee. Such injustices keep happening to some boxer in every tournament,” said Emanuele.
“We were very surprised by the referee's decision and even the athlete who didn't understand what was happening when we turned to the technical delegate to ask for help, he just bowed his head down. She was the top seed and we lost a medal.”
Asked whether there was any scope to protest such a decision, he said, “unfortunately the protest is no longer active in the regulation and therefore we can do nothing to resolve this great injustice.”
On the new bout review system, he said, “The review is an important tool but it needs to be perfected. Even more important is to make a careful selection of the referees of the quality of the referees and judges, and above all give them great training which is not done.”
Refereeing and judging is one aspect that led to its suspension from the International Olympic Committee in 2019. IBA says it has taken several measures like introducing vetting and artificial intelligence to select technical officials. An independent probe into the controversial bouts at the Rio Olympics by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren in 2021 pointed to 10 suspicious 'bouts' and 'manipulation' of results, leading to a big uproar.
“You need to have the best technical officials, even if they belong to one country. You don’t need to take judges and referees from every nation,” says Emanuele.
At the time of going to print, the IBA was yet to respond to questions on the matter.
