The 48th General Assembly of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations, which convened Tuesday in Birmingham, United Kingdom, excluded the International Boxing Association (IBA) as an ASOIF Member.
The move follows the April 2 decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, dismissing IBA’s appeal against the International Olympic Committee’s decision to withdraw IBA’s recognition as the International Federation (IF) for Olympic boxing. Previously, ASOIF had already suspended IBA’s full member’s rights.
Additionally, in view of cricket (Twenty20), squash, flag football, baseball/softball and lacrosse (Sixes) being included in the LA28 Olympics sport program, the ASOIF general assembly granted associate membership to the International Cricket Council (ICC), World Squash, the International Federation of American Football (IFAF) and World Lacrosse, taking effect on 1 January 2025.
“After we waited for the appeal at CAS and the decision of the IOC was confirmed, we had no choice to follow our constitution,” Reuters quotes ASOIF president Francesco Ricci Bitti as having said at a press conference.
“Now we are waiting for some alternative organisation. Boxing is a very important sport.”
Following the CAS verdict, the IOC has urged national boxing federations and national Olympic committees (NOCs) to find a partner international federation by next year at the latest to keep the sport in the Olympics.
Without coming out and categorically stating it, the IOC’s clear preference as a “partner international federation” is the recently formed World Boxing, which is backed by the Western Bloc lead by the US and UK.
World Boxing will be seeking recognition from Olympic organisers to replace the IBA and is expected to be the IOC’s partner of choice.
“This is up to the IOC. We hope that the alternative body that will come into the picture will be representative of the real sports organisations which are the national bodies,” Ricci Bitti said.
“Representative” is a more than loose term seeing as currently only the Philippines from Asia, Nigeria from Africa, and Argentina and Brazil from South America are countries of note from the non-Western bloc to have joined World Boxing.
The IBA said it was disappointed by the ASOIF decision.
“While this outcome is profoundly disappointing, we wish to stress our unwavering commitment to the sport of boxing and our remarkable athletes and coaches across the globe as the IBA starts its recognition journey,” the IBA said in a statement.
Ingmar De Vos next ASOIF president
Meanwhile, the ASOIF general assembly unanimously elected Belgian Ingmar De Vos, president of the International Equestrian Federation (FEI), as its next president. The third term of incumbent Ricci Bitti will come to an end on 31 December. De Vos ran unopposed and was elected for a term of four years, starting on 1 January 2025.
The Belgian has served as FEI president since 2014 and as ASOIF council member since 2019. Since 2017 he is a member of the IOC.
The ASOIF membership also received in-person reports from the Olympic Games Organising Committees for Paris 2024 and LA28. With less than four months to go until Paris 2024, the Organising Committee, led by its president Tony Estanguet, updated the general assembly on the latest Games preparations. The focus was on several items particularly important to the IFs, such as venue infrastructure, transport, test events, sports presentation, sustainability considerations and knowledge transfer to future organisers. The next milestone will be the lighting of the Olympic flame in Olympia on 16 April.
