THE Caribbean has voted overwhelmingly for the upcoming AIBA Congress to be held virtually. This was disclosed by Americas Boxing Confederation (AMBC) Vice-President and Chairman of the Caribbean Steering Committee for Boxing, Steve Ninvalle.

Ninvalle was at the time appearing on popular Jamaica radio programme Power Play hosted by Cliff Williams on Power 106 FM. He revealed that by Thursday evening (the time of the programme) a total of 13 countries had given their thumbs up for the virtual hosting of the Congress.

Last week AIBA president Dr Mohamed Moustahsane had written to all National Federations seeking opinions on virtually hosting the Congress, which had been set for Budapest, Hungry on December 13 and 14 but was disrupted by the advent of COVID-19.

National Federations were given a deadline of last Friday to respond. “To date 13 countries have agreed to the virtual hosting. “I expect that others will do the same before the deadline expires. While we fully support the new way in staging the Congress we will ask to be assured of the confidentiality of the votes,” Ninvalle told Power Play.

The respected high-ranking regional boxing administrator said that there is an overwhelming expectation that the region will continue its “established and tested” united stand leading up to the AIBA elections. “Even though we would have had disagreements on a number of issues, I am happy to declare that we are a unified force,” Ninvalle declared.

The countries to have agreed to the hosting were: Antigua, Barbados, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Curacao, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Lucia, St Maarten, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and US Virgin Islands.  On Friday, Bahamas, Dominica and Anguilla would have sent in approvals.

The upcoming Congress marks the first time that AIBA will be staging the important event without voting delegates being physically present. The Congress agenda includes the election of the president. So far, Domingo Solano of Dominican Republic and Azerbaijan’s Suleyman Mikayilov have thrown their hat into the ring.

It is widely expected that Secretary of the Russian Boxing Federation Umar Kremlev will shortly announce his intention of seeking the top seat.

AIBA has 203 affiliated countries drawn from the five confederations. Europe with 51 affiliates has the largest block followed by Africa with 50. Asia (44), Americas (42) and Oceania (16) make up the other confederations.