Francisco Varcarcel
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Francisco Valcarcel (born c. 1950) is a Puerto Rican lawyer who is also president of the World Boxing Organization.
[edit] Brief biography
Valcarcel grew in San Juan, where he studied law at the University of Puerto Rico's Colegio de Abogados, graduating with honors from the college.
He began private practice in an office in San Juan. Valcarcel's first contact with boxing came during the early 1980s, when he became Wilfredo Gómez's lawyer and negotiated Gómez's contracts with promoter Don King. After helping Gómez by working for him, Valcarcel remained interested in boxing, although he was not very involved in the sport.
The WBO was created in 1988, quickly establishing it's central offices in San Juan. Valcarcel became a member of the new world championship sanctioning body, and he rose in the organization's ranks. In 1996, Valcarcel became the WBO's president, following former world Light-Heavyweight champion Jose Torres at the helms of the organization.
Under Valcarcel's rule, the organization has been able to sign deals with the World Boxing Association, World Boxing Council and International Boxing Federation to hold unification bouts between WBO world champions and world champions from the other organizations. Valcarcel and WBC president Jose Sulaiman had a long feud, and thus the WBC was the last organization to convene with the WBO to hold world title unification bouts.
In 2004, Valcarcel was accused by a young Dominican Republic girl of committing statutory rape with her. Nevertheless, Valcarcel was declared innocent by the Dominican courts, who suspected the girl had been coherced by a top World Boxing Organization representant who wanted to take Valcarcel's place as the Organization's president.
During a 2005 meeting between boxing's four major world sanctioning bodies, it was decided that United States areas which did not comply with medical requirements for world title bouts to take place would not be allowed to have championship bouts. Valcarcel declared that This os (only) our first step (towards protecting boxers health).
