Seán McGoldrick: Irish boxing is hoping to bring a bitter civil war to an end this Sunday

At an extraordinary general meeting (EGM), club delegates will vote on whether the €49,108.28 in legal costs incurred by 25 high-profile members who were wrongly expelled by the association three years ago should be reimbursed.

The wounds opened by this bitter dispute have not yet fully healed even though there has been a complete change in the leadership.

Delegate meetings of the IABA have a habit of turning into raucous affairs and Sunday’s EGM has the potential to reopen the divisions which the row caused at the time.

The controversy had multiple strands but essentially it boiled down to growing frustration over the failure of the board of directors to elect two new members.

But other issues – including the emergence of a document which was critical of then director of the IABA high performance unit Bernard Dunne, as well the disciplinary action taken against members over alleged breaches of Covid regulations – led to a toxic atmosphere developing.

In the summer of 2021, the Leinster and Connacht councils of the IABA and the Dublin board withdrew their support from the central council’s officer board.

The central council responded in August by passing votes of no confidence in the three units. Furthermore, they voted to remove certain named individuals from membership of the IABA.

The matter was then referred to the IABA’s board of directors who convened a membership panel to rule on the case.

Comprising two independent barristers and the governance officer of another sport’s national governing body, the panel reviewed all the documents during the course of four meetings. There are no hearings, however.

They backed the decision to expel the elected officers of both the Leinster council and the Dublin board as well as a number of Connacht council officials. In all, 25 of the association’s most high-profile individuals had their memberships revoked.

Among those suspended was the president of Leinster IABA Andrew Duncan – who was also a member of the IABA board at the time, as was his fellow board member Tom Geraghty who was the Connacht council’s representative.

The president of the Dublin board and a former long-serving secretary of the IABA, Art O’Brien, Olympic referee and judge Dermot McDermott and two of the IABA’s longest-serving members, Paddy Keogh and former Connacht IABA president Joe Hennigan, were banned.

This escalation in the dispute caused a huge fissure in the organisation.

The ruling came at a particularly sensitive time as postal voting was under way for four of the five officer positions on the central council. A number of individuals who were seeking election, including vice-presidential candidate Tom Ward, were technically no longer members of the association as a result of the ruling.

Ultimately, the election was postponed while the next stage of the saga, an appeal by the suspended members to Sports Dispute Solutions Ireland (SDSI), a not-for-profit service, was heard.

Following legal submissions, the suspensions were temporarily lifted in December 2021 pending the outcome of the full hearing. In March 2022, the SDSI delivered its interim verdict and quashed the suspensions.

The work of the SDSI is confidential and those involved are not allowed to discuss any aspect of the case including the reasoning behind a decision.

However, because the verdict was published in the Irish Independent, the SDSI panel ruled that this constituted a breach of their rules on confidentiality.

Noting the confidentially breach the SDSI made no order as to costs, which meant that though they won their case, the suspended members ended up paying their own legal bills which amounted to just under €50,000.

There was one further twist in the saga.

As Duncan and Geraghty were IABA directors, the SDSI heard their appeals separately. They quashed their suspensions, describing them as “flawed” and said the IABA had “misdirected itself on its own constitution and rules and applied unfair procedure”. By then the central council had a new officer board.

There was more upheaval in July 2022 following the overwhelming rejection by clubs of the recommendations made in an independent report on reforming the IABA. The then chairman of the board Ciarán Kirwan and chief executive Fergal Carruth resigned. A permanent replacement for the latter has yet to be appointed.

The issue of the legal fees continued to be a source of angst, however. According to a statement published on the IABA website, the board of directors decided at a meeting on May 1 that the issue of whether the IABA reimburse the legal fees should be determined by the clubs.

So, provided there is a quorum of at least 40 affiliated members present (which is by no means certain) this long saga may finally be put to bed on Sunday.