The IOC Executive Board has decided to recommend to the session of the International Olympic Committee to withdraw the recognition granted to the International Boxing ociation (IBA) but to maintain boxing on the program of the Paris Olympic Games in 2024.
” This decision, says a press release from the IOC, builds on the full report dated 2 June 2023 prepared by the IOC on the situation of the IBA, which the IOC Executive Board reviewed and approved today. The report states that the IBA has failed to meet the conditions set by the IOC in the decision which the latter communicated to the International Federation on December 9, 2021 – and which was not contested by the IBA – for the lifting of the suspension of its recognition”.
Boxing in Paris… but not in Los Angeles?
On the other hand, “in the interest of boxers and boxing”, the executive board will ask the session to keep boxing on the sports program of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. in Villepinte and at the Roland-Garros Stadium. Events which, like the qualifications, will be organized under the aegis of the IOC alone.
These points will be examined during an extraordinary session to be held by videoconference on Thursday 22 September. Knowing how the IOC works, these proposals should be adopted almost unanimously, putting an end to the war that the IOC and the IBA have been waging for several years, the IBA, chaired by the Russian Umar Kremlev, not hesitating to come into conflict with the organization chaired by Thomas Bach.
This would bode ill for the maintenance of boxing on the Olympic program after the Paris Games. She has indeed already been withdrawn from the Los Angeles program and, under these conditions, it is hard to imagine how she could return there. Except that, at the very end of its report, the IOC specifies: “The additional consequence of this situation […] is that the IBA should not organize the Olympic boxing tournament of the Games of Los Angeles 2028”. A sentence that is not included in the IOC press release and therefore leaves a door open to maintaining the noble art on the program of the Games. Under the direct leadership of the IOC or under that of the new international federation World Boxing, launched by the United States. It is hard to imagine that World Boxing was launched without the approval of the American Olympic Committee, which surely discussed this question with the IOC. A decision will be taken on this subject during the Mumbai session (15-17 October).
The IBA intends to take legal action
The IBA reacted quickly and announced its intention to take legal action. “We have made the new IBA transparent, clean, and our successes have been publicly recognized by independent experts from several countries and there is only one organization that has no interest in recognizing our tremendous progress, Umar Kremlev said in a statement. For four years, the IBA has not received a single opportunity to present its achievements in a face-to-face meeting with the IOC, instead of exchanges of letters and emails. We accepted the process and the rules, but in the end, we were not evaluated fairly. Now we have no other chance but to demand a fair essment from a competent court. »