Double boxing – Newspaper Kommersant No. 65 (7510) of 04/14/2023

A split has taken shape in world amateur boxing. A group of national boxing federations, including the US and UK boxing associations, announced the creation of a new international federation, World Boxing. Its leaders have already announced that they will seek recognition from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which means that they will claim to actually replace the International Boxing Association (IBA) that has already existed for 77 years. There are chances that the IOC will cooperate with the split structure. After all, his relationship with the IBA is at its lowest point, and détente is not expected. And further escalation could lead to the fact that boxing will not get into the program of the 2028 Games in Los Angeles at all.

On Thursday, representatives of several national boxing federations announced the establishment of a new international structure that will develop amateur boxing. The founders of World Boxing (the name the organization received) were the boxing federations of the USA (Americans hold the first place in the number of Olympic gold medals – 50), Great Britain (third place in the number of Olympic gold medals – 20), Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand and the Philippines .

The structure is registered in Switzerland. Its budget for the current year will be a modest €900,000 (the financial capacity of the IBA is much larger; say, the prize fund of the March women’s world championship was $2.4 million.

However, the leadership of World Boxing hopes that as new members join the federation – and their admission will open in May – it will attract more attention from sponsors. “We all understand that the time has come for a change,” said US Boxing Federation President Tyson Lee. “Well, or at least we should have another choice. A choice that prioritizes participation in the Olympic Movement.” And the president of the Netherlands Boxing Federation, Boris van der First, who unsuccessfully tried to become head of the IBA last year, said that he expects a rapid and significant influx of new participants in World Boxing.

According to the head of the interim executive board of World Boxing, Simon Toulson, at the moment the key task is to resolve legal issues. But in the future, World Boxing expects to receive recognition from the IOC.

True, Mr. Toulson believes that this will not happen quickly. “I think it’s very difficult to make it to the 2024 Games in Paris,” he said, but expressed the hope that the IOC would eventually meet World Boxing.

The establishment of World Boxing brings a serious split into the world of amateur boxing. It should be noted that the IBA has been in charge of amateur boxing for more than a hundred years (the name of the structure has changed several times), but in recent years its relations with the IOC have developed downward and reached a point beyond which only a complete rupture of ties. Recallthat the crisis, financial and managerial, began at the IBA back in 2019. At the same time, the IOC withdrew the recognition of the federation and itself held a boxing tournament at the 2020 Games in Tokyo. According to a similar scheme, the IOC intends to act at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. But the presence of boxing in the program of the 2028 Games in Los Angeles is in question.

The confrontation between the IOC and the IBA entered an extremely acute phase after the start of the events in Ukraine. Last spring, the IOC recommended that international sports federations remove Russians from participation, which the vast majority of them did (at the end of March of this year, the IOC adjusted its position and recommended federations to allow Russians in a neutral status). However, the IBA, headed by the Russian Umar Kremlev, after whose election as the president of the association managed to solve its financial problems, last fall this ban was canceled and allowed Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete under their own flag. This led to a boycott of the IBA’s men’s and women’s world championships by about a dozen national federations. Among them are those who were the founders of World Boxing. And at the end of March, the IOC said that if the IBA does not change its policy, then it will face certain consequences. It was not specified which ones exactly, but given that the relationship between the IOC and the IBA has reached an impasse and neither side is willing to compromise, it cannot be ruled out that for the IOC the way out of the situation would be just the recognition of World Boxing as a governing boxing structure.

At the same time, World Boxing is ready for the fact that their actions will cause opposition from the IBA.

According to Simon Toolson, of course, he would not want events to take an ugly turn, but noted that he was ready for confrontation. “The IBA can protest if it wants to. We are legally a free association registered in Switzerland. I don’t think we need to worry about the actions of the IBA,” says Mr. Toulson.

Alexander Petrov