Court upholds IOC ruling to remove International Boxing Association from Olympic family

A CAS panel appointed to hear the appeal took testimony from both sides in November. It said the IBA failed to meet the IOC's conditions for recognition.

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IOC President Thomas Bach chairs the IOC's Executive Board Meeting for September. (Image source: IOC Flickr/Greg Martin)

The Court of Arbitration for Sport has upheld the IOC decision to remove the International Boxing Association from the Olympic family.

The court announced Tuesday that it dismissed the IBA appeal because the organization “had not complied with the conditions set down by the IOC for recognition.”

The Russian president of the IBA, Umar Kremlev, said in November they would appeal at Switzerland’s supreme court if they lost their appeal at CAS, sport’s highest court.

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Last year, the IBA was de-recognized after a years-long dispute fueled by defying advice and instructions from the International Olympic Committee, which had long cited concerns about boxing’s governance, reliance on money from Russian state energy firm Gazprom, and the integrity of bouts.

Boxing kept its status as an Olympic sport for the coming Paris Games, but the IOC is overseeing the qualifying and medal tournaments without IBA involvement, as it did for the Tokyo Games in 2021.

A CAS panel appointed to hear the appeal took testimony from both sides in November. It said the IBA failed to meet the IOC’s conditions for recognition.

“The IBA had not increased its financial transparency and sustainability including through diversification of revenues,” the CAS statement said Tuesday.

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Next, it said the IBA “had not changed its process relating to referees and judges to ensure its integrity, including a monitoring period for IBA’s own competitions ahead of the Olympic Games Paris 2024.”

Finally, the IBA failed to implement governance reform measures “including a change of culture.”“As a consequence, the panel determined that these three elements justified the IOC Session’s decision to withdraw recognition of the IBA and emphasized that the IOC’s right to control the circumstances in and the conditions on which it confers recognition outweighed the IBA’s personality rights,” the statement added.

The IBA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment