Al-Masri, the chairman of the Referees' Commission at the German Boxing Association (DBV), declared shortly before the deadline closed yesterday.

The information technology entrepreneur, who is originally from Palestine and claims to speak six languages, is hoping the fact he has no links to previous administrations at AIBA will give him an advantage.

AIBA was stripped by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) of its right to host the boxing tournament at Tokyo 2020 over issues surrounding its finances and governance.

"Having a completely clean record for IOC, I will try to make a new beginning focusing on developing a road map of how we are going to satisfy IOC's requirements," Al-Masri wrote in a letter sent to more than 200 National Federations announcing that he would stand in the election due to be held in a virtual format on December 12 and 13. 

Al-Masri claimed he had gained an understanding of AIBA by working on computer projects for the organisation.

"In my job as a computer scientist, I was project manager for many major projects," he said.

"One of my most frequent tasks is the analysis and optimisation of processes. 

"During the development of the AIBA database, I had many interviews with all the departments in AIBA to understand how they work. 

"This way, I acquired a profound knowledge about the processes inside AIBA, and I would be delighted to put this knowledge into service for AIBA."

Al-Masri joins a list of five other candidates, which includes Umar Kremlev, secretary general of the Russian Boxing Federation, Asian Boxing Confederation President Anas Al Otaiba from the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan's Suleyman Mikayilov.

All three served on the AIBA Executive Committee under Uzbekistan's Gafur Rakhimov, forced to step down as President last year because of alleged links to heroin trafficking.

The other candidates are honorary AIBA vice-president, the Dominican Republic's Domingo Solano, and Boris van der Vorst, President of the Dutch Boxing Federation.

It is not surprising that one of Al-Masri's main concerns is the judging scandals that blighted AIBA for decades. 

"In the past, there have often been rumours about unfair referees and judges," he wrote. 

"An important task will be to complete the way we started in and to make sure that referees and judges are neutral in any way. 

"Making mistakes or even big mistakes may be a lack of abilities, but judging deliberately in a wrong way is unforgivable. 

"So, AIBA has to make sure to select the best referees and judges, and AIBA must make sure to identify cheaters and remove and punish them immediately. 

"It is, therefore, a principal duty to educate referees and judges in a common way. 

"We must make sure that judges from different countries and continents judge a bout in the same way in order to find a correct result. 

"In addition, we have to refine and apply mechanisms of evaluation of referees and judges to make sure that there is no fraud in any stage of a contest."

DBV President Erich Dreke is backing his campaign for the election.

"So, the most important thing is that he wants to get a clean sport off the ground," Dreke said.

"So that means he wants to nip all corruption and bribery in the bud.

"He definitely wants to win a sponsor to put the main problem, the financial conditions, on a much better footing."

AIBA is estimated to be $20 million (£15.3 million/€17 million) in debt.

"In order to make ourselves less dependent, it is indispensible (sic) to find sponsors in the long run to be able to survive even if there should be any problems with other governing bodies in the future," Al-Masri wrote.

"But to have a chance to find someone who is willing to spend his money, AIBA has to provide the image of a clean and honest organisation that everyone would be proud of being a cooperation partner."