The Pakistani was President of the AIBA from1986 to 2006 and was a hugely influential, but ultimately divisive, figure in the sport.

He was ousted after allegations of misappropriation of funds, a charge he denied but which led to him being banned for life from the AIBA.

He was also President of the Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) for 33 years, until 2008.

Chowdhry was instrumental in introducing the latest points scoring system after the previous system created controversy at the Seoul Olympics in 1988.

But it led to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) raising objections over the system and the selection of judges and referees.

Later, the IOC stopped its grants to AIBA until all the requirements for fair judging and refereeing were fulfilled.

Chowdry was dethroned as President by Taiwan's Ching-Ku Wu in 2006 following a series of corruption allegations.

A report published by the AIBA Ethics Commission, a year after Chowdry's defeat, outlined a series of of financial regularities during his reign.

The Ethics Commission claimed that Chowdry had treated the AIBA his personal property where rules were disregarded and greed was rampant.

In all, the report described the Chowdhry years as "a saga of bad or poor management, dereliction of duty, total lack of governance, greed, breach of rules and law, gross negligence and possibly criminal acts cascading down from the very top of AIBA’s former administration."

Nevertheless, Wu tonight paid tribute to Chowdhry.

"It’s a huge loss for the world’s sports community and especially for boxing," he said in a message.

During Chowdhry's reign, Pakistan claimed its sole Olympic boxing medal when Hussain Shah won a bronze in Seoul.

He will be buried in Karachi tomorrow.

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