Sport Resolutions, which set up the panel of highly qualified experts who carried out the vetting of candidates, said the panel "will not be subject to any interference by IWF bodies or candidates".

The Eligibility Determination Panel (EDP), whose members include a retired judge and a former ambassador to the United Nations, was blamed by the IWF Interim President Mike Irani for an administrative mess-up that has forced the governing body to delay the Electoral Congress scheduled for December 20 and 21 in Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent.

A new date has yet to be decided.

As revealed by insidethegames yesterday, the IWF missed the deadline to publish the full list of candidates, both eligible and ineligible.

That means the elections cannot go ahead as planned, as the results would be open to legal challenge.

Irani said, "It is noted that until today (November 21) the EDP did not report their final decisions and determinations to me, as obliged by the IWF Constitution."

A brief announcement was also made by the IWF on its website.

The EDP is thought to have ruled more than a quarter of all candidates ineligible, including several current IWF Executive Board members.

Sport Resolutions issued a statement today in reaction to "the IWF's inaccurate communications".

"The Eligibility Determination Panel would like to publish a correction to a significant inaccuracy in the IWF’s statement published recently on their website regarding the EDP’s determinations, which claimed the final list of eligible and ineligible candidates was not delivered to the IWF by the deadline of 19th November 2021," Sport Resolutions said.

"The EDP, operated independently by Sport Resolutions, has considered the candidacies of individuals put forward for election to the IWF posts in accordance with its Terms of Reference, and its determinations were communicated to the candidates and the IWF on Friday 19th November 2021 in accordance with its Terms of Reference.

"Further to its issuance, the IWF sought clarification and/or further information on a small number of administrative matters, which were promptly provided to it. 

"Should any further questions be put to it by the IWF, the EDP will address them.

"The EDP expects the IWF to fulfil its duty by implementing the EDP’s decisions and publishing an unredacted version of the EDP’s determinations as set out both in the EDP’s Terms of Reference and in the IWF Constitution.

"The EDP has performed its function entirely independently of the IWF, and will not be subject to any interference by IWF bodies or candidates."

When asked if the SDP had sent its decisions directly to Irani, as per the IWF Constitution, Sport Resolutions' communications manager Duygu Yetkincan replied, "We shared the EDP determinations report with the IWF to be distributed amongst the relevant individuals and commissions."

Irani did not respond to a request for further comment, but an IWF source insisted that the panel's decisions had not been communicated in such a way, or in time, for all details to be published in accordance with the IWF Constitution by the deadline, which was 30 days before the planned elections.