International Boxing Association

International Boxing Association

Abbreviation	IBA
Formation	29–30 November 1946
Type	Sports federation
Headquarters	Lausanne, Switzerland
Region served	Worldwide
President	Umar Kremlev[1]
Main organ	Congress
Website	IBA.sport

The International Boxing Association (IBA), previously known as the Association Internationale de Boxe Amateur (AIBA), is a sports organization that sanctions amateur and professional boxing matches and awards world and subordinate championships. It is one of the oldest boxing federations in the world, coming into existence after the 1920 Summer Olympics. The IBA consists of five continental confederations, the African Boxing Confederation, American Boxing Confederation, Asian Boxing Confederation, European Boxing Confederation, and Oceania Boxing Confederation. As of 2021, the IBA included 198 national boxing federations.^[2] It organises the biennial IBA World Boxing Championships, and governed boxing at the Summer Olympics until 2020.

The IBA's status in the boxing community began to decline in the 2000s, and moreso in the 2010s and 2020s; multiple presidencies—such as those of Anwar Chowdhry (1986–2006), Wu Ching-kuo (2006–2017), and Umar Kremlev (2020–present)—have been impacted by governance issues and allegations of corruption, such as concerns over the integrity of officiating and scoring in Olympic boxing. Financial mismanagement during Wu Ching-kuo's tenure caused the association to incur a large amount of unpaid debt, resulting in his departure in 2017, and being issued a lifetime ban in 2018.^[3] In June 2019, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) suspended the association due to governance and financial issues; an IOC-organised task force oversaw boxing at the 2020 and 2024 Summer Olympics, and the sport's status for 2028 is currently undetermined.

Kremlev was elected in 2020 with a promise of reforms, and the rehabilitation of its relationship with the IOC. Under Kremlev, the IBA instituted a major restructuring of its executive board, introduced a financial assistance program for national federations, added prize money to its World Boxing Championships, and paid off its outstanding debt. It also commissioned an independent report by Richard McLaren that found systemic attempts to manipulate match outcomes for money during the 2016 Summer Olympics. Kremlev's tenure has been controversial, with concerns raised by the IOC over the IBA's increasing ties to Russia after assuming the presidency (including moving much of its operations to Russia and having state-owned Gazprom as sole sponsor for a period), opposition to the independent appointment of judges and referees, irregularities during subsequent presidential elections, and the controversial disqualifications of Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting during the IBA's 2023 world championships.^[4][5]

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a group of national federations known as the Common Cause Alliance (CCA) demanded transparency over the IBA's finances and the Gazprom sponsorship, and pledged continued support for boxing as an Olympic event. In October 2022, the IBA lifted a ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes competing under their national flags, which had been imposed amid the invasion.^[6][7] Its 2023 world championships faced boycotts from a number of countries, and false statements by the IBA claiming that they were an "approved" qualifying path for the 2024 Summer Olympics.^[8] The CCA later evolved into a competing amateur boxing federation known as World Boxing. In June 2023, the IOC voted to formally revoke its recognition of the IBA, due to a lack of sufficient progress on addressing governance, finance, and corruption concerns since the original suspension; the IBA became the first international federation to ever be expelled from the Olympic movement.