World Boxing: new body launched to rescue the sport for future Olympics

World Boxing, a new organisation which aims to secure the long-term future of boxing at the Olympic Games, was launched on Thursday by concerned administrators of the sport from around the world.

In a significant boost to previously forlorn hopes that boxing can be salvaged as an Olympic sport, the national federations of Great Britain, the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand and the Philippines issued a joint statement stressing that World Boxing has been established to “address the IOC’s longstanding concerns over sporting integrity, governance, transparency and financial management [which] has placed boxing’s future as an Olympic sport in doubt”.

The statement added: “World Boxing will seek recognition from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and plans to work constructively and collaboratively to develop a pathway that will preserve boxing’s ongoing place on the Olympic competition programme.”

The IOC is locked in a bitter dispute with the International Boxing Association (IBA), the sport’s maligned governing body which stands accused of corruption and incompetence. The IBA has been sanctioned and prevented from running boxing at both the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and next year’s Paris Games owing to concerns over their finances, governance and ethics. The IOC took charge of the boxing programme in Tokyo – and will do so again in Paris.

In a more ominous decision for the sport, boxing has been excluded from the initial programme of planned events at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028. Last year, an independent investigation into the IBA was headed by Prof Richard McLaren whose report painted a damning picture of “a culture of bout manipulation”, financial corruption, poor administration and