IOC grants provisional recognition to World Boxing as the new international federation

Lausanne, Feb 26 (IANS) The Executive Board (EB) of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), during a remote meeting held on Wednesday, provisionally recognised World Boxing (WB) as the International Federation (IF) within the Olympic Movement governing the sport of boxing at the world level. The move clears the path for boxing to be included in the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028 after the IOC suspended the International Boxing Association (IBA) before the Tokyo Olympics and conducted boxing competitions in the last two editions of the Games.

Following an assessment of the situation of World Boxing, it was noted that, among the criteria for recognizing an IF, it has satisfied requirements regarding recognition by 78 national and four Continental federations and has gained the support of a majority of boxers.

World Boxing “is composed of 78 National Federations from the five continents and four continental confederations are already established and has provided evidence that 62 percent of the boxers and 58 percent of the boxing medallists at the Olympic Games Paris 2024 are affiliated with National Federations that are members of World Boxing”, the IOC said in a statement on Wednesday.

The IOC also said that World Boxing “applies the sports integrity process implemented during the Olympic Games Paris 2024 by the Paris Boxing Unit, including with independent oversight, and has obtained AIMS membership, as approved by the SportAccord Executive Committee and the AIMS General Assembly. It was also satisfied that World Boxing has put in place structure and documentation for good governance and has demonstrated strong willingness and effort in enhancing good governance and implementation to be compliant with the appropriate standards.

World Boxing has also provided the IOC “assurance with regard to its revenue-generating process on the basis of multi-year commercial partnership agreements covering the period 2025-2028”. Lack of clarity on revenue generation was one of the reasons why the IOC had de-recognized IBA. The IOC said World Boxing has “successfully applied for World Anti-Doping Code Signatory Status, which has been accepted by WADA” and has fully implemented a contract with the International Testing Agency (ITA).

“The assessment concluded that World Boxing has continued to make progress regarding the identified areas of consideration in order to be recommended for IOC Provisional Recognition as the IF within the Olympic Movement governing the sport of boxing at the world level,” the IOC said in a statement posted on its official website.

The IOC stripped the International Boxing Association (IBA) of its recognition in 2023 over its failure to implement reforms on governance and finance. It had, in 2019, stripped the world body of its rights to conduct boxing at the Olympics. The IOC, through its boxing task force, conducted competitions at the Tokyo and Paris Olympic Games but later decided not to take over that responsibility for LA 2028.

Now, with the provisional affiliation to World Boxing, a major hurdle for including boxing in LA28 has been cleared.

–IANS

bsk/