Italy's Assunta Canfora, left, walks off the ring after refusing to accept the referee's decision ©Italian Boxing Federation/Facebook

A Danish referee has been dropped from the International Boxing Association (IBA) Women’s World Championships here after a contentious knockout verdict.

The Italian team were left infuriated when light welterweight top seed Assunta Canfora faced a count before referee Kent Hansen stopped the fight in favour of Camila Gabriela Camilo Bravo of Colombia before the end of the opening round.

Canfora refused to accept the result as she stormed off the ring before Camilo Bravo had been declared the winner of the last-16 meeting.

Indian newspaper the Hindustan Times has reported that Hansen has now been stood down from the event, scheduled to finish tomorrow.


His removal comes after Italian head coach Renzini Emanuele hit out at the referee’s performance in the bout.

"There was no reason to stop the fight because our athlete was winning the round," Emanuele told the Hindustan Times.

"She just suffered a very normal blow, just like here opponent suffered other blows with the same effectiveness.

"It was just a clear effort by the evaluation referee.

"Such injustices keep happening to some boxer in every tournament.

"We were very surprised by the referee’s decision and even the athlete who didn’t understand what was happening when we turned to the technical delegate to ask for help, he just bowed his head.

"She was the top seed and we lost a medal."

The IBA has put in place vetting processes for referees and judges to ensure there is no repeat of the judging scandal that marred the Rio 2016 Olympics ©IBA
The IBA has put in place vetting processes for referees and judges to ensure there is no repeat of the judging scandal that marred the Rio 2016 Olympics ©IBA

Judging and refereeing was one of the areas of concern for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) when it decided to strip the IBA of any involvement in the boxing competition at Tokyo 2020.

The worldwide governing body was suspended by the IOC because of continuing concerns related to governance, financial transparency and sustainability, and the integrity of its refereeing and judging processes.

All 36 referees and judges at Rio 2016 were banned from officiating at Tokyo 2020 following suspicious results.

Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren led an investigation where he found that the manipulation of bouts continued "unabated" at several major boxing events after Rio 2016.

The IOC is again set to organise boxing events at Paris 2024 due to ongoing concerns with IBA’s governance and the sport has been left off the initial programme for Los Angeles 2028.

insidethegames has contacted the IBA for comment.