Decision of the General Assembly: International Olympic Committee excludes boxing federation IBA

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IOC President Thomas Bach at the General Assembly

Photo: FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has expelled the suspended International Boxing Association (IBA). This decision was made by the IOC General Assembly on Thursday at its 140th session, which was held virtually. Out of 80 votes, 69 were in favour of expulsion (with one against and ten abstentions).

The IOC members followed a corresponding recommendation of the executive branch on 7 June. Never before had the IOC given the thumbs down to an umbrella organization of an Olympic sport. This means that boxing is without an Olympic federation for the time being.

"We have no problem with the sport of boxing, the boxers or their values. We value the values of boxing very much," said IOC President Thomas Bach: "But we have an extremely serious problem with the IBA. The boxers deserve to be represented by a federation that lives integrity and transparency."

Since 2019, the IBA has been suspended by the IOC due to "lack of financial transparency" and "lack of integrity of arbitration processes". Critics accuse the IBA of corruption, leadership problems and distortion of competition.

Boxing will be part of the program in 2028

At the Tokyo 2021 Summer Games, a task force set up by the IOC organized the boxing competitions. The same is planned for Paris 2024. When asked, the IOC also confirmed on Thursday that boxing will also be part of the program in Los Angeles in 2028. Until now, this was considered uncertain.

Most recently, in the fight for the Olympic survival of their sport, several national federations had founded the new international federation World Boxing, including the German Boxing Federation (DBV). In response, the DBV, among others, was suspended from the IBA. In a statement, World Boxing described the increasingly looming exclusion of the IBA as a "very significant moment".

The IOC exclusion is based on a recommendation by the IOC Executive Committee, which did not find any significant improvements in a report on the situation of the boxing federation in early June. On Tuesday, the IBA, led by its controversial Russian President Omar Kremlev, failed before the International Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) with a motion to suspend the decision on the future.

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