The IOC put a time limit on boxing if it wants to be in Los Angeles
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) set a deadline for boxing to remain on the Olympic program in Los Angeles 2028 and reiterated that it will not organize qualifying competitions, as was the case for Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024.
The IOC established as “beginning of 2025″ the time limit for a new Federation to take charge after the International Boxing Association (IBA) removed its recognition, a decision ratified last Tuesday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS).
“For the time being, boxing is not included in the sports program of the LA28 Olympic Games. To remedy this, the IOC needs to have an associated International Boxing Federation in early 2025,” said the body chaired by Thomas Bach.
“For governance reasons, the IOC is not in a position to organize another Olympic boxing tournament. To keep boxing on the Olympic program, the IOC needs a recognized and reliable International Federation as a partner, as is the case with all other Olympic sports,” he added.
If boxing will be in Los Angeles it will be without the IBA, which was against the ruling of the TAS and regretted “that its initiatives have been ignored”. In addition, he pointed out: “The IOC never provided the IBA with a coherent road map or established a direct communication channel, even after the IBA proposed a liaison person 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for these related matters.”
The IBA explained that in search of lifting the suspension, imposed on it by the IOC in 2019, “it elected a new Board of Directors through a rigorous selection process, which reflects most of the recommendations of the Ulrich Haas Governance Reform Group, and established the Independent Boxing Integrity Unit (BIIU)”; at the same time, it noted that it had carried out “a cleaning of competition officers and processes have been implemented for the evaluation of all personnel in the field, including international technical officers, referees and judges”.
Regarding its financial situation, another of the points set by the IOC for the suspension, the International Association stated that “it has paid millions of dollars in debt. It has become financially sustainable and completely independent of Olympic revenues with its income from events and sponsors. It has been reorganized from top to bottom and across the organization.”
Boxing will not be in Los Angeles with the IBA and the big question is who it will be with. In the midst of the conflict between the IOC and the International Association, World Boxing emerged, which celebrated the ruling of the TAS and will seek to position itself as the Federation that will keep the sport in the Olympic program.
“The TAS decision and the IOC’s comments send a clear and unambiguous message to all National Federations that if they want their boxers to have the opportunity to change their lives by continuing to compete in future Olympic Games, they must do so. We must support and seek to join World Boxing,” said the new Federation, which has the United States and Great Britain among its members.
World Boxing stated that “this is the last hope left for the sport to maintain its Olympic status beyond Paris 2024. There is no alternative. It would be devastating for boxers. Without the Olympics, boxing and boxers will suffer.”
The IOC left the future of boxing in the hands of the Federations and National Committees, which since Saint Louis 1904, with the exception of Stockholm 1912 (it was banned in Sweden), has continued uninterruptedly in the Olympic Games. Will it continue?
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