The International Olympic Committee announced that IBA, the corrupt amateur governing body, will not be allowed to play a part in the Olympic qualification system for the Paris 2024 games. It has not been determined how the 2024 Olympic boxing and qualifying will be handled, but Olympic boxing is generally safe for inclusion in the 2024 games. However, boxing has not yet been approved for the 2028 Olympics due to the mess created by IBA. The IOC made its decison about 2024 in the wake of a June 14th arbitration decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which confirmed that four men (Boris van der Vorst, Michael McAtee, Steven Hartley and Per-Axel Sjöholm) were wrongly disqualifed from running for IBA management positions just two days before the election. When the four disqualifications were issued, Russian oligarch Boris Kremlev was able to get re-elected to another term. The four men were disqualified for "early campaigining," a minor breach of IBA rules.
According to Reuters, an IOC representative stated in a Friday virtual press conference that IBA is prone to corruption in part because it owes so much money to a Russian oil company. That company, Gazprom, is an IBA "sponsor" that is 38% owned by the Russian government. The IOC representative commented as follows: "The various IOC concerns around the governance of the IBA, including the refereeing and judging process and its financial dependency on the state-owned company Gazprom, are still ongoing."
The Russian energy company is the biggest sponsor of the IBA (which was formerly known as AIBA). Kremlev was the one who arranged the "sponsorship" agreement, although he has refused to disclose all the details.
That is far from the only evidence of corrution that taints IBA. An investigative report, which was required by the IOC but was issued by IBA last month, contained the following key findings against IBA itself:
1. More than a decade of financial mismanagement created a damaging legacy that hung over the management and administration of the sport [of amateur boxing] until recently.
2. The pursuit of investments for unrealistic business plans and the implementation of the ventures contributed to the improper management and administration of the sport and of the planned ventures.
3. Corruption was allowed to creep in and take hold of the organization because of the senior management’s excessive focus on finding investments for unrealistic ventures. Insufficient attention was paid to the administration of the sport and its officials. When those enterprises never materialized, the sport suffered a huge financial burden that nearly caused its collapse. The singular focus of management became finding funds to repay the loans and pay the staff. The combination of attrition and the lack of financial resources ultimately resulted in the organization being left with a skeleton staff to run itself.
4. There is a lack of a fully developed IBA set of educational material for referees and judges and international technical officials to be used by national federations for training sessions at IBA level competitions. The materials that exist are not delivered by qualified instructors. The training language is English and simultaneous translation is not always available. The consequences are that there is no adequate training and development strategy to ensure advancement of referees and judges and international technical officials.
5. Overriding the automated draw system by manual interference facilitates the possibility of bout manipulation. The problem is caused by the neutrality principles the sport uses to select referees and judges not properly reflected in the automated system, thereby justifying manual draws. Nevertheless, there are far too many manual interventions. This occurs at IBA and
Continental Confederation level tournaments.
6. There continue to be reports of officials fulfilling roles that they are not capable of doing despite having credentials suggesting that they could perform the role. The problem is caused by the control of the selection of officials by the Continental Confederations and national federations with a lack of IBA involvement.
7. The Code of Conduct and the rules of play are constantly being breached particularly as they relate to mobile phone use and succumbing to pressure by those who should not be in the field of play. These types of seemingly minor infractions reinforce the past culture which disregarded the ethics and integrity of the sport.
8. Too many people have accreditation to access the field of play without the necessity of being there. Those without accreditation can also be found from time to time in the field of play. Some
of these individuals attempt to influence officials or even abuse them.
9. The vetting process and use of the Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) tool together with followup vetting has identified potential high-risk referees and judges and international technical officials who as a consequence have not officiated at the particular tournament. The benefit of the process and presence of the investigation team investigators has been the greater sense of security and protection without interference of external pressures on referees and judges and international technical officials.
