He International Olympic Committee He said on Tuesday that he would love to have boxing in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Gamesbut that a new one would have to be created first new global governing body of this sport.
The IOC withdrew recognition from the International Boxing Association (IBA) for not having carried out reforms in the area of governance and finance and has not yet included this sport in the program of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games.
This does not mean that boxing will not be present, but given its lack of official inclusionthis discipline so emblematic of the great summer competition is in the air.
IOC withdraws recognition of International Boxing Association
The International Olympic Committee withdrew recognition in June 2023 to the International Boxing Association, in what they declare was the “only solution” possible after having reached this federation “a point of no return” in its governance problems.
IOC members voted for 69-1, with 10 abstentions, in favor of withdrawal of recognition, thus following the recommendation made by its Executive Committee.
The IBA had already provisionally withdrawn recognition since the year 2019.
As he explained Christophe De KepperIOC Director General, the IBA has since shown its lack of will “to evolve” in matters of corruption, finance and arbitration.
The IBA has been chaired since December 2020 by the Russian Umar Kremlevwhich has maintained a permanent pulse with the IOC and which, in the opinion of this organization, has not undertaken the necessary reforms to guarantee the governability of the federation and the transparency on key issues such as arbitration.
De Kepper mentioned the financial dependence on the IBA from the company Gazprom, controlled by the Russian stateand their inability to diversify their income.
As for the integrity of the competitions, the director explained, the federation decided not to apply the arbitration systems used by the IOC in Tokio 2020which reduced the influence of the human factor and minimized the risks.
Concerns regarding arbitration have not been satisfactorily addressed.
The IOC president, the German Thomas Bachhad stated before the vote (in which he abstained) that the problem was not “Neither with boxing nor with boxers”but that they “deserve to be governed by a transparent and clean federation.”
Boxing tournaments for the 2024 and 2028 Games They will therefore not be organised by the IBA.This already happened in Tokyo 2020, when the IOC took on that role. For Los Angeles, they are already demanding a new body to carry out the entire process, and without one, boxing could be absent.
Umar Kremlev blames the former president for the ills of the IBA (formerly AIBA) KC WuTaiwanese, who became a member of the IOC Executive and a candidate for its presidency, and of whom the Russian said that deserved to be “shot”.
CAS rejects IBA appeal
He Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) rejected in April the appeal of the International Boxing Association (IBA) against the IOC’s decision withdraw recognition.
Specifically, the CAS noted that the IBA had failed to increase its transparency and financial sustainability, including through diversification of revenue.
Nor had it changed its process regarding referees and judges to ensure their integrity, including a period of monitoring for its own competitions before the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, or guaranteed the Full and effective implementation of all measures proposed by the “Governance Reform Group” established by the IOC, which provided for a change in culture.
The CAS considered that these three elements justified the decision taken by the IOC Session in June 2023 to withdraw its recognition from the IBA and highlighted the IOC’s right to control the circumstances and conditions for granting recognition. outweighed the IBA’s personality rights.
With information from Reuters…
