Luke Campbell Faces Azerbaijan's Najafov in Baku

Former European champion Luke Campbell will bid to move a step closer to Olympic qualification in Baku on Tuesday when he begins his World Championship campaign against Azerbaijan's Rahim Najafov.

Campbell knows three wins ought to be enough to secure him a place at London 2012 but he will leave nothing to chance against Najafov, with allegations of corruption still swirling around the host nation.

A BBC Newsnight programme alleged last week that an Azeri businessman had pumped millions of pounds into the international governing body's World Series of Boxing in return for two guaranteed Olympic gold medals for Azeri fighters.

The allegations were strenuously denied by AIBA, who promised to launch an investigation, but their cause was hardly helped by the World Championship draw, in which all nine of the competing Azeri fighters have been seeded.

They include a super-heavyweight, Magomedrasul Medzhidov, who has never previously fought at the weight in an international competition and is not ranked in AIBA's own world top 50, yet has been given a seeding of two.

In all weights bar the heaviest two, the eight quarter-finalists are guaranteed places in London. At heavyweight and super-heavyweight, where the Azeris are seeded three and two respectively, a semi-final place will be enough.

Great Britain's bid began badly on the opening day of competition, with young light-flyweight Charlie Edwards slipping to a narrow 17-15 defeat to Junior Zarate of Argentina.

Also on Tuesday, Wales' reigning European flyweight champion Andrew Selby will begin his campaign against Hesham Abdelaal of Egypt. Ireland's Michael Conlan is also in action.