The British Judo Association (BJA) has been heavily criticised for making “serious errors of judgement” which resulted in the loss of the European Judo Championships.

The governing body secured the right to host the championships – which were scheduled for April 2015 in Glasgow – following a successful bidding process in 2013.

However, a few months before the event was suppose to begin the continental governing body, the European Judo Union (EJU), stripped the BJA of the championships following a dispute over a sponsorship deal.

UK Sport, which used exchequer funding to facilitate the hosting of the championships, subsequently launched a review with the aid of lawyer Hamlins LLP and has now published the findings.

According to the report, which was undertaken by Hamlins partner Mark Gay, the EJU contract was rescinded due to a sponsorship agreement which was brokered by the BJA chair Kerrith Brown for the championship.

The report alleges that Brown entered into contractual arrangements with the Combat Sports Federation (CSF) to sponsor the event without seeking consent of the EJU, and that he “failed to disclose the arrangements” several times.

In addition, the report notes that Brown finalised the agreement “against a backdrop where he had direct personal interest”, and stood to benefit from an unspecified sum of money. Brown stepped down from his role as chair in June 2015, shortly after the investigation began.

UK Sport has also published a correspondence from Gay in which he criticised the BJA’s handling of the affair, labelling its own Disciplinary Investigation Report “a mish-mash of pasted together excerpts”. He regularly stated that he was “bemused” and “perplexed” at the “nature of the disciplinary process”.

The elite sport quango has confirmed that all public money invested in the event has been “fully recovered”, adding: “The report clearly shows that the BJA leadership made some serious errors of judgement in the handling of this event and we are disappointed that these contributed to the removal of the championships”.

Ronnie Saez, the new chair of the BJA, said: “The board of the BJA fully acknowledges that there are lessons to be learned from the Review process and therefore, in partnership with our stakeholders UK Sport and Sport England, we are committed to undertaking a full review of our governance procedures to ensure that our future governance is of the highest standard and fully supports the principles established in the government’s recently published Charter for Sports Governance and is compliant with the more detailed code which shall emerge later in the year.

“However, following the conclusion of these processes, the board recognises the need for the BJA to move forward and to look to the future constructively and positively for the good of the British judo community.”