Russian boss of Gazprom-backed boxing body AIBA turns to man who lifted lid on Russian state-sponsored doping to lead corruption probes
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Richard McLaren, the Canadian law professor and sports investigator, is best known for exposing Russia for state-sponsored doping.
So eyebrows were raised this week when it emerged that McLaren had been hired by one of Russia’s most powerful sports administrators.
Umar Kremlev has called on McLaren Global Sports Solutions as part of his bid to reform amateur boxing’s world governing body AIBA.
Specifically, McLaren is tasked with investigating the judging and refereeing at Rio 2016 and possible financial corruption at AIBA – concerns that have seen the body stripped of organising the boxing competitions at this summer’s delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
“Boxing has a long history of questionable activities,” said McLaren. “It is time for boxing to turn the page, but it cannot do so without a full accounting of any alleged misconduct.”
He added that his team had been “given the independence to follow any and all leads to uncover the truth”.
McLaren has become sport’s go-to investigator since his 2016 report, which saw Russian athletes banned from the Olympics.
His company is also probing claims of sexual harassment in basketball and last year looked into alleged corruption and doping in weightlifting.
Kremlev was voted in as AIBA president in December after a successful ‘Make AIBA Great Again’ campaign and has since brought state-owned energy giant Gazprom on board as a sponsor.
“For some time it has been clear that AIBA could do more in following up on allegations of unfairness,” Kremlev said. “Unfortunately, in order to move to a brighter future we must now also shine a light on AIBA’s past.”