The National Olympic and Sports Committee does not provide money for the participation by Moldovan taekwondoists in the Olympic Games, member of the Taekwondo Federation of the Republic of Moldova Valentin Konev stated in a news conference at IPN.

“The National Olympic and Sports Committee has never allocated money for training for the Olympic Games. We several times requested the Committee to show in written form how much it is allocated for the Federation, but received no answer. For half a year, the Ministry of Sport allocated 600,000 lei for the whole Taekwondo Federation, for all the planned competitions,” stated Valentin Konev.

President of the Taekwondo Federation of the Republic of Moldova Igor Iuzefovici said the naturalized athlete Aaron Cook in 2016 took part in the Rio Olympic Games. “None of the representatives of the National Olympic and Sports Committee attended the competition that involved Aaron Cook. Furthermore, the return ticket to the Olympic Games was bought by the Federation and by his brother, who is his coach,” stated the Federation’s president.

Igor Iuzefovici noted that the Taekwondo Federation of Moldova and the National Olympic and Sports Committee are now in litigation and the dispute is to be examined by the Court of Arbitration for Sport based in Lausanne.

He also said that this conflict appeared when the Federation’s main coach Vladislav Mazur was removed from post because this appropriated the incomes of other coaches. “He registered athletes trained by other coaches as his trainees and transmitted the list to the Ministry of Sport. We addressed the World Taekwondo Federation and this stripped Mister Mazur of license. This served as a reason for conflict,” stated Igor Iuzefovici.

The hearing of the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne was scheduled for October 3 this year.