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A Turkmen boxing referee and an Azerbaijani technical official were expelled from the London Olympics on Thursday after a night of controversy plunged the sport back into the mire, Reuters reported.

The focus should be turning to women boxers competing at an Olympic Games for the first time on Sunday but instead the International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA) has had to deal with the type of scandals that dogged it almost a decade ago.

Turkmen referee Ishanguly Meretnyyazov and Azerbaijani International Technical Official Aghajan Abiyev were sent home with immediate effect, while a second referee, Frank Scharmach of Germany, was suspended.

“I deeply regret that we had to take these decisions,” AIBA President Wu Ching-Kuo said in a statement.

Meretnyyazov failed to stop a men’s bantamweight bout on Wednesday evening despite fighter Magomed Abdulhamidov being knocked down six times in the final round. The referee was expelled and AIBA said he was on his way home.

Japan’s Satoshi Shimizu, who went into the last round of the bout against the Azerbaijani trailing by seven points, lost the contest by five when all three rounds were scored.

AIBA later overturned the verdict saying Meretnyyazov should have given the Azerbaijani “at least” three standing counts which would have resulted in the contest being stopped.

Azerbaijani official Abiyev was expelled for breaking his contract by communicating with his country’s team, according to an AIBA document obtained by Reuters.

Abiyev broke two of the codes in his contract, according to a copy seen by Reuters. Code 7 forbids technical officials from communicating with anybody about any competition, especially persons from their own country or national federation.