The International Olympic Committee voted Wednesday to ban the AIBA, following the IOC Executive Board’s recent recommendation to suspend the AIBA’s Olympic status. As a result, the AIBA will not oversee qualifying or the 2020 Tokyo Games competition. The IOC has assigned a “task force” headed by Morinari Watanabe, head of the International Gymnastics Federation of all things, to organize qualifiers and the Tokyo Games competition.

Russian Boxing Federation Secretary General and AIBA Executive Committee member Umar Kremlev, who recently met with WBA President Gilberto Jesus Mendoza, IBF President Darryl Peoples, and WBO President Francisco Valcárcel at the Global Forum that took place recently in Ekaterinburg, Russia, issued this statement:

“I think that today, after all the decisions of the IOC, all members of the AIBA Executive Committee will understand that we need to unite and say goodbye to the old. And everyone guilty of what brought AIBA to, must confess, apologize to the boxing community and leave.

“Our task, as members of the AIBA Executive Committee, is to unite, to accept early reforms and to start everything from scratch together to bring boxing back to a high level.

“We have already launched the process of creating the World Boxing Fund and are receiving hundreds of calls from around the world from everyone who cares about boxing, saying that they are waiting for the moment when they can start cooperating with the foundation, including to repay AIBA’s debts.

“Thanks to the whole boxing community, that everyone supports our idea with the creation of a fund and the preservation of Olympic boxing.”