AIBA chief says Michael Conlan could face disciplinary action

Michael Conlan could be facing disciplinary action over his Olympics outburst, according to International Boxing Association (AIBA) president Dr. Wu Ching-Kao.

This is despite Conlan insisting he would never box for the organisation again following his highly controversial defeat to Russia's Vladimir Nikitin in Rio.

Belfast bantamweight Conlan was on the wrong end of the most contentious of a number of highly questionable decisions during the boxing tournament at the Brazil Games.

After his loss to the Russian, Conlan said: “They’re fucking cheats. That’s me. I’ll never box for AIBA again. They’re cheating bastards who are paying everybody.”

And Dr. Wu has branded Conlan’s post-fight rant “unacceptable,” suggesting there would be repercussions for the 24-year-old.

Speaking to the Associated Press, he said: “The IOC says this is totally unacceptable. You cannot humiliate people. They are officials. He put himself in a difficult position, I can tell you. A lot of disciplinary action will follow. You should show proper behavior.

“If you are not happy about the result, you cannot humiliate in public our referee-judges. That has already drawn a lot of people’s attention who want to punish him, so we are going to have a disciplinary commission for the case.

“You can go through the right channel to say, ‘OK, may I have the chance to really review this bout?’ We do have the ability to review. This bout particularly, with his behavior that drew a lot of attention, we wanted to review whether it’s correct or not.

“Judges have no intentions. Why do (you think) they hate your country? The judges, why do they want it in favour of this (country) over the other one? There’s no reason.

“But since that happened, we want to totally review our system, how to improve in our mind. Maybe five judges will score all fights, and all scores will be open. No more computer selection.

“I proposed these changes to our referee-judge management. We look at five and select three by computer, only showing the three. Maybe in the future we should change it to all five judges all showing, nothing to hide. It will be transparent. We will continue to work to make it in a more perfect condition.”

Wu also moved to rubbish any accusations of corruption in amateur boxing, he said: “People accusing AIBA of corruption, please give me the evidence. I have no mercy to those (corrupt) people. I hate manipulation, corruption. You will see how severe punishment I punch to those people. Really! People say corruption. What corruption?

“I have no salary. I am absolutely a volunteer. Everybody knows I’m only working for sport. I don’t have an account, nothing. Even if people wanted to give me money, I have no account. I don’t need money. I don’t like it.

“Money can help you. Money can kill you if you don’t handle it carefully. That’s why from the first day I’m elected to the AIBA presidency, I said, ‘I don’t need a salary.’

“A lot of reform and changes happened because I hate corruption. I will immediately punish the people involved in corruption or taking money.

“Maybe (corruption) happened 10 years ago with the old administration, my predecessor (Anwar Chowdhry), but that is no more. During that time, I watched carefully, and that’s why I already removed four vice presidents, now three secretary generals, six executive committee members.

“There is zero tolerance. You are a good friend, but when you’ve broken the rules, I don’t know you. I will let you see what severe punishment I’m going to give to those bad people.”

It is unclear how an restospective action would be administered with Conlanlikely to move into the professional ranks following his defeat.