PARIS – The International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive board on Wednesday recommended withdrawing recognition of the International Boxing Association (IBA) over its failure to meet a set of reforms.
The IBA had been suspended by the IOC in 2019 over governance, finance, refereeing and ethical issues and it was not involved in running the boxing events at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
The Olympic body had also provisionally excluded the sport from the Los Angeles 2028 Games.
The decision now only needs the rubber-stamping of an extraordinary IOC session, to be held remotely and set for June 22.
The IOC has in the past removed sports or included new ones in the Olympic programme, in order to refresh the Games and make the competitions more relevant to younger audiences.
However, stripping the recognition of a sports federation is extremely unusual.
“This decision is based on the IOC comprehensive report on the situation of the IBA, dated June 2, 2023, which the IOC executive board discussed and approved today,” the IOC said in a statement.
“The report establishes that the IBA has failed to fulfil the conditions set by the IOC... for lifting the suspension of the IBA’s recognition.”
The IBA hit back with a statement threatening “retaliatory measures” and decrying the move as “truly abhorrent and purely political”. It said its efforts had been largely ignored and not taken into consideration by the IOC.
“We accepted the process and the rules, but in the end, we were not assessed fairly. Now, we are left with no chance but to demand a fair assessment from a competent court,” said IBA president Umar Kremlev.
The Russian also said it was a “watershed moment” for all international federations and warned stripping the IBA’s recognition could set a precedent for others.
Boxing is part of the Paris 2024 Olympics but the qualifications and the competition are being run by the IOC and not by the IBA, as was the case for the Tokyo Games.
In an IBA report sent to the IOC recently, the association blamed the Olympic body for intransigence and false statements.
But the IOC had repeatedly warned IBA, whose head since 2020 has been Russian businessman Mr Kremlev, that it had not done enough.
Other issues such as a sponsorship deal with Russian energy giant Gazprom – that has since been terminated – further complicated the IBA’s position, due to the Russian war on Ukraine.
The IBA’s actions have led to the creation of a breakaway group called World Boxing recently with several countries – including the United States, Britain, New Zealand, Germany and the Netherlands – having left the IBA to join the new organisation. REUTERS
