The IOC is preparing to hit boxing – Newspaper Kommersant No. 55 (7500) of 31.03.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has warned the International Boxing Association (IBA) of negative consequences if the boxing federation, which is in protracted conflict with the Olympic governing body, continues its current policy. The IOC’s statement comes as a reaction to a previously released IBA letter in which it threatened to sue for damages for the IOC’s attempt to “poach” IBA judges. If the parties do not settle the contradictions in the near future, it is likely that as early as October, at the IOC session, a decision may be made to exclude boxing from the program of the 2028 Games.

The International Olympic Committee reacted to the published on Monday open letter IBA (the federation is headed by Russian Umar Kremlev), in which the boxing association accused the IOC of violating previously signed agreements, criticized the methods of work of the IOC and threatened to demand legal damages.

The official representative of the IOC, Mark Adams, read out the response letter approved at the meeting of the IOC Executive Committee. It states that the allegations, “especially those relating to the integrity of the management process in the IOC, are denied.”

The document notes that the Executive Committee instructed IOC Director General Christophe de Koepper and Secretary of the IOC Ethics Commission Paquerette Girard Zappelli to analyze the situation, in particular the expert report on the situation in the IBA, and prepare a report for the next meeting of the IOC Executive Board. “If they really want to follow the path outlined in their letter, this will show that the IBA has no interest in conducting a fair selection for the Olympics, and, of course, this will have consequences,” said Mark Adams. Games only those sports in which a fair selection was made. To be clear, the IOC has no problem with boxing as a sport or boxers, we have a problem with a disqualified federation.”

The IBA was dissatisfied with the fact that the IOC, bypassing the federation, invited judges and technical staff of the IBA to work in the qualifying tournaments for the 2024 Olympics.

Back in 2019, the IOC withdrew recognition from the IBA, which had fallen into a managerial and financial crisis, and eventually hosted the boxing tournament of the 2020 Games in Tokyo on its own. According to the same scheme, the IOC intends to act at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. The IBA considered the actions of the IOC a violation of the agreement between the parties, in particular the data transfer agreement signed in November 2019 by the IBA and the IOC. One of its clauses states that “the transferred personal data (contact data) will not be stored for longer than is necessary for the agreed purposes and will be completely and irreversibly destroyed after the implementation of the agreement.” The IBA believes that the IOC did not delete the data, which allowed direct contact with the technical staff of the federation. At the same time, judges who still accept the IOC proposal may face sanctions from the IBA.

The latest actions of the parties bring the protracted conflict between them to a new level, and it cannot be ruled out that the IOC will go to extreme measures, namely the exclusion of boxing from the program of the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. Perhaps this is what Mark Adams had in mind when he said that the actions of the IBA “will have consequences.” Simply because there are no other ways to force the IBA to abandon its independent policy (for example, the Boxing Association was the first of the international sports federations to return the right to Russians and Belarusians to compete under their own flag, which they lost after the start of events in Ukraine). The issue of the 2028 Games program will be discussed at the IOC session in October.

Alexander Petrov