By Karolos Grohmann
PARIS (Reuters) -The International Olympic Committee executive board on Wednesday recommended withdrawing recognition of the International Boxing Association (IBA) over its failure to meet a set of reforms, the Olympic body said in a statement.
A source with direct knowledge of the proceedings said the IOC had also decided to have the sport as part of the Olympic Games programme of Los Angeles 2028.
The IOC suspended the IBA in 2019 over governance, finance, refereeing and ethical issues and did not involve it in running the boxing events at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
It had also provisionally excluded the sport from the Los Angeles 2028 Games.
The decision now only needs the rubberstamping of an extraordinary IOC session, to be held remotely and set for June 22.
“This decision is based on the IOC Comprehensive Report on the Situation of the IBA dated 2 June 2023, which the IOC Executive Board discussed and approved today,” the IOC said in a statement.
“The report establishes that the IBA has failed to fulfil the conditions set by the IOC… for lifting the suspension of the IBA’s recognition.”
Boxing is part of the Paris 2024 Olympics but the qualifications and the competition are being run by the IOC and not by the IBA, as was the case for the Tokyo 2021 summer Games.
In an IBA report sent to the IOC recently, the association blamed the Olympic body for intransigence and false statements.
But the IOC had repeatedly warned IBA, whose head since 2020 is Russian businessman Umar Kremlev, that it had not done enough.
Other issues such as a sponsorship deal with Russian energy giant Gazprom that has since been terminated further complicated the IBA’s position, with Russia invading Ukraine last year.
(Reporting by Karolos GrohmannEditing by Gareth Jones)
