The IOC has taken note of the decision of the International Boxing Association (IBA) regarding prize money. As is usual with the IBA, the source of the prize money is unclear. This complete lack of financial transparency is one of the reasons why the IOC withdrew its recognition of the IBA. The IBA was not prepared to transparently explain the source of its funds, nor to explain its total financial dependence on one company, Gazprom, which was then a state-owned company.
Due to its suspension and subsequent derecognition by the IOC in 2023, the IBA was not involved in any part in the qualification or running of the boxing competition for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, nor is it involved in the Paris 2024 Olympics. The qualification and Olympic competitions were and are still run by the Boxing Department, which was set up by the IOC to protect athletes, national boxing federations and National Olympic Committees (NOCs).
For all these reasons, boxing is currently not on the sports programme for the XXVIII Olympiad, and the IOC has made it very clear that it cannot return to having boxing as an Olympic sport.
To solve this problem, Olympic boxing needs to be run by a credible and disciplined international federation. Therefore, it is already clear that boxers from national federations that are members of the IBA cannot participate in the Olympic Games LA28. Each NOC needs to exclude such national boxing federations from its membership.
