November 14, 2006	Tuesday	Shawwal 21, 1427

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KARACHI, Nov 13: The former AIBA chief’s tall claims of making great innovations in international boxing scoring selection system of referee and judges vanished here on Monday when he finally conceded that system had loopholes in it.

Taking pride earlier in announcing that he invented the computerized scoring system and the spy camera, Chowdhry was rendered speechless when asked why International Olympic Committee (IOC) had raised objections over the AIBA judging system and froze its payments.

According to information, a letter written to Chowdhry by IOC president Jacques Rogge on July 9, 2005 makes it evident that AIBA scoring system did come under review by the IOC last year and its payments were held back.

“I refer to previous correspondence regarding judging issues during Olympic Games and in particular to our meeting in Lausanne on May 18, 2005.

“This new problem was discussed at the recent IOC Executive Board meeting in Singapore. The executive board was not satisfied with the progress that has been reported by AIBA on judging issue and therefore has decided to freeze all payments to AIBA.

“This decision will remain in force until such time that AIBA provides information regarding proposed changes to open scoring system and improved process for the selection of judges and referees,” said the Rogge letter.

Chowdhry on Monday admitted that Rogge’s demands were valid and he eventually adopted new selection system of referees and judges and open scoring system. “Although there were some points on which I didn’t agree, Rogge was right in saying that there should be open scoring system. And I also followed IOC’s instructions by changing the selection system of judges by using computers,” said former AIBA president.

Chowdhry said he was certain that after his ouster from AIBA, the medals will become a commodity which anyone would be able to buy. But he once again failed to make a satisfactory reply when told that he was also accused of manipulating results during his tenure.

Interestingly, while Chowdhry has always been proud of his computerized scoring system, the 2004 Olympic qualifying round in Karachi and several Green Hill Cup tournaments had become farce when Thailand team manager accused Chowdhry of interchanging scores. The Indian coach Sidhu also raised hue and cry over what he said was “unfair and unjust decision making” which deprived his best boxer of an Olympic berth.

Over the recent corruption allegations made against him by the AIBA officials, chairman of Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) said he earned the money when he was sports consultant with sports goods manufacturing giant, Adidas.

He, however, could not provide any evidence to substantiate his claims.Similarly, Shakeel, who regularly repeated the questions to his father-in-law who could not grasp them accurately, denied that he or Chowdhry never received any commission from sports goods manufacturing company Green Hill. Shakeel, however, did not dwell upon the e-mail message in which he had asked a Green Hill official to send him a sum of 300,000.

Chowdhry also avoided talking about not submitting the four-year accounts despite the passage of the deadline by AIBA. The world body’s financial regulations say that its president and secretary should submit their original invoices on annual basis but Chowdhry failed to do so.

In the wake of loss at AIBA, Chowdhry has decided against contesting elections as president of Federation of Asian Amateur Boxing (FAAB) next month during the Asian Games in Doha.