AIBA terminates Delhi's WSB contract

''The Incheon Redwings will take over the troubled WSB Delhi franchise to complete the Asia conference in the World Series of Boxing. The Incheon Redwings will compete against the Astana Arlans, the Baku Fires and the Beijing Dragons from November this year,” the AIBA said in a statement.

“The South Korean city of Incheon, West of the capital Seoul, stepped into the ring after WSB decided to terminate its agreement with the Delhi Franchise. This is due to domestic political problems in the boxing community in India,” it added.

“The sponsorship was a major factor and we had been waiting to hear from the Indian Boxing Federation for a long time now but they haven’t come forth. There was clear deadline for them and that ended last weekend,” AIBA’s Communication Director Paul O’Neil said. The Indian franchise — Delhi Tigers — had been dealt a body-blow when main sponsor Videocon backed out citing “unavoidable circumstances” last month but the Federation had insisted that it would find a new sponsor.

The Indian team was supposed to comprise five home-grown stars — Olympic bronze medallist Vijender Singh, Commonwealth Games gold medallist Akhil Kumar, Commonwealth champions Dinesh Kumar and Jai Bhagwan and Asian bronze medallist Jitender Kumar — besides nine other international boxers.

Of these, Vijender has already backed out saying that he wants to focus on amateur boxing, while the rest had been sent intimation of their contracts being terminated when Videocon pulled out last month. German coach Mirko Wolf had also been hired for the team.