The EUBC is investigating judging complaints from this year's men's European Championships ©Getty Images

The European Boxing Confederation (EUBC) is investigating a fresh judging controversy after suspending a number of referees and judges who officiated at the men's European Championships last month in Armenia, while an Extraordinary Congress has been called.

The Extraordinary Congress is unrelated to the judging scandal and instead relates to financial reports, the EUBC insists.

The European body has confirmed to insidethegames that its Board of Directors received complaints about certain judges and although it would not reveal the nature of the protests, decided that they were valid.

As a result of that, and also that the International Boxing Association (IBA) bout review system could not be used at the event in Yerevan from May 21 to 31, a decision was made not to use the judges in question for the finals.

The EUBC claims that it is now studying an alternative system of bout review whenever the IBA system cannot be used and is set to submit a proposal to the global governing body for its evaluation.

Amateur boxing has been blighted by judging and refereeing issues for a number of years.

It was among the areas of concern which led to the International Olympic committee (IOC) suspending its recognition of the IBA in 2019 and instead installing an IOC Boxing Task Force to oversee the tournament at Tokyo 2020.

An independent report led by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren uncovered more than 10 suspicious matches at the Rio 2016 Olympics, detailing how "compliant and complicit" referees and judges, existing in a "culture of fear, intimidation and obedience" created by the IBA - then known as AIBA - corrupted the boxing tournament.

The contentious Rio 2016 boxing tournament was among the chain of events which led to the IOC suspending its recognition of the IBA.

Refereeing and judging issues at Rio 2016 have placed boxing's Olympic future under threat ©Getty Images
Refereeing and judging issues at Rio 2016 have placed boxing's Olympic future under threat ©Getty Images

The IBA is still not recognised by the IOC and boxing has been left off the provisional programme for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.

The EUBC is now led by Greek official Ioannis Filippatos, who was elected President in April.

Filippatos sits on the IBA Board of Directors as the EUBC President.

The EUBC has called an Extraordinary Congress on June 25 but stresses it is not because of the refereeing complaints.

"I confirm that the EUBC will hold an Extraordinary Congress, to be conducted remotely on June 25, with the only agenda topic to discuss and vote on the financial reports," an EUBC spokesperson told insidethegames.

"It was not possible to deliberate on this topic during the Ordinary Congress of April 30 because of the sudden absence of the auditor."

After the Extraordinary Congress, the EUBC is preparing to stage its next major continental event - in the form of the women's European Championships - in Budva in Montenegro.