World Boxing expects membership boost after Paris

PARIS : World Boxing expects more countries to switch allegiance and sign up after a Paris Olympic tournament overshadowed by a power struggle for control of the sport and a gender row in the women’s ring.
The Swiss-registered body, created in April last year, has so far attracted 37 members from five continents compared to around 200 claimed by the International Boxing Association (IBA).
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) stripped the IBA of recognition last year over its failure to implement reforms on governance and finance, and boxing has yet to be confirmed on the 2028 programme.
A shambolic IBA press conference on Monday featured the remote participation of its Russian leader Umar Kremlev making personal attacks against IOC president Thomas Bach.
“The best recruiting sergeant for a new federation was that press conference yesterday,” IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said. “It will give you an idea why we are in desperate need for a federation to take it forward.
“We hope that those national federations, I think some are already coming together, more after yesterday, and let’s hope they can bring it to Los Angeles.”
World Boxing said the IOC had made its position clear.
“If they (national federations) want their boxers to have the opportunity to compete at an Olympic Games in the future they need to take immediate steps to join World Boxing,” it said.
“This is the only path that will see boxing remain as part of the Olympic Games after Paris 2024 and National federations need to act now and begin the process of applying for membership of World Boxing.”
While IBA have been shut out, World Boxing’s president Boris van der Vorst is attending the Paris Games with talks going on behind the scenes.
World Boxing already has close links to the IOC through its secretary general Simon Toulson, a Briton who previously led the International Canoe Federation and worked in the IOC’s sports department.
Asked by Reuters Television at the weekend whether he was confident the situation would be “back to normal” for boxing by the time of the Los Angeles Games, Van der Vorst said yes.
“More and more federations are applying for World Boxing,” he added, saying keeping boxing in the Olympics was the only reason the body had been established.
The new body had a declared budget of 900,000 euros for its first year with the money raised through donations, membership and some sponsorship revenues.
The IBA website lists Russian state energy firm Gazprom as a general partner, although Kremlev said last year that the sponsorship had ended.
It has a financial support programme, helping athletes attend tournaments, with funds allocated for national federations and continental confederations.
Many boxers are from the poorest sections of society in countries with scant resources, making it tempting for some federations to stay with IBA rather than switch to another body offering less or no financial support.
The IBA said in May it would award $100,000 to gold medallists at the Paris Olympics despite not being involved in the tournament, $50,000 for silver and $25,000 for bronze.
The move drew a stinging response from the IOC at the time.
“As always with the IBA, it is unclear where the money is coming from,” it said in a statement. “This total lack of financial transparency was exactly one of the reasons why the IOC withdrew its recognition of the IBA.”

(Additional reporting by Iain Axon and Karolos Grohmann, editing by Christian Radnedge)