No respite for Umar Kremlev. Present in Paris last Thursday for a press conference in a Parisian palace, the President of the International Boxing Federation (IBA) followed this up with a stopover in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. On the agenda: the elective congress of the African Boxing Confederation (AFBC). Ethiopia’s Berhanu Eyassu Wossen (photo above, with Umar Kremlev) was the only candidate in the running, after the other candidates withdrew, and was acclaimed president of the continental body. He succeeds Cameroon’s Bertrand Mendouga, who came to power in 2022 but was suspended last August by the IBA’s ethics commission. A total of 44 of the AFBC’s 46 member nations attended the congress. The election was originally scheduled for last month in Durban, South Africa. However, the congress was postponed, and relocated to Ethiopia, following opposition from a collective of thirty African nations to the list of candidates for the presidency of the African body, validated a month earlier by the nominations commission of the Boxing Integrity Independent Unit (BIIU).
