The Executive Board (EB) of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Wednesday recommended to the IOC Session to withdraw recognition of the International Boxing Association (IBA).
The IOC has already suspended the IBA over matters of governance, financial mismanagement and allegations of irregularities in referring and judging at Olympics and Wednesday’s recommendation has been made in accordance with Rule 3.7 of the Olympic Charter (OC), the IOC informed in a media release.
To discuss the matter and take a final decision, the IOC EB and the IOC President have convened an Extraordinary IOC Session to be held remotely on Thursday, June 22, 2023.
The decision will not have any impact on boxing’s presence in the sports programme of the 2024 Olympics in Paris and it will be conducted by IOC, just like it was done during the Tokyo 2020 Games.
This EB decision is based on the IOC Comprehensive Report on the Situation of the IBA, submitted on June 2, 2023, which the IOC’s EB discussed and approved on Wednesday.
The report establishes that the IBA has failed to fulfil the conditions set by the IOC in its decision communicated to the IBA on December 9, 2021 — which was not challenged by the IBA — for lifting the suspension of the IBA’s recognition.
In the preparation of this report, the IBA was granted the right to be heard and to provide any information it deemed relevant.
The IOC EB also recommended to the IOC Session — in the interest of the boxing athletes and the sport of boxing — to maintain boxing on the sports programme of the Olympic Games Paris 2024, in accordance with the IOC EB’s decisions communicated on June 24, 2022, September 8, 2022 and December 6, 2022.
On June 26, 2019, upon the IOC EB’s recommendation, the IOC Session suspended the recognition of AIBA (subsequently the IBA as of 2021), pursuant to OC Rules 3.7, 18.2.8, 18.2.11 and 25 §2.
That decision had noted that, although there were sufficient grounds to withdraw AIBA’s recognition, for the protection of boxing athletes and the maintenance of boxing as a sport at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, the IOC Session was willing to provide AIBA with an exceptional opportunity to restore its full compliance with OC Rule 25 and the IOC Code of Ethics.
With the administrators of the sport failing to satisfy the IOC despite taking various steps and leadership change, the IOC has taken this step.
A matter will finally be settled after a final verdict case filed by the boxing body at CAS. Meanwhile, boxing’s future in the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028 and beyond remains in doubt.
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