pro's to be allowed to compete in olympics

The International Boxing Association (AIBA), the world governing body for Boxing as recognized by IOC has entered into a comprehensive commercial partnership with IMG, the world's premier Sports, Entertainment and Media Company to launch the World Series of Boxing (WSB). World Series of Boxing, slated to be launched in September 2010, is a new dimension in boxing that will bring out best of amateur and professional boxing in the world. AIBA and IMG will be working closely with the Indian Boxing Federation (IBF) to introduce and popularize the Series in India, illustrate the investment outlook with potential partners and create suitable opportunities for the sport in India.

The World Series of Boxing will be held across three global regions of Europe, Asia and the Americas and will be the only professional series in which Boxers will retain their Olympic eligibility and federations will receive a return on their investments in boxers. The World Series of Boxing will crown both Individual Boxers and city-based teams as World Champions. AIBA in association with IMG has formed WSB SA.

The minimum fee for acquiring a franchise would be around $5 million for a total period of 10 years.

Speaking on the announcement Ivan Khodabaksh, Chief Operating Officer, WSB and AIBA Sports Director said "Boxing has a great potential in this part of the world and we see India as a major franchisee and huge base for growing great talent. WSB aims to provide great benefit to national boxing federations that will play a critical role in the development of the WSB. We are confident that WSB will bring about a paradigm shift and signal a new era in professional boxing across the world."

Ravi Krishnan, Managing Director IMG South Asia and Sr Vice-President, IMG Worldwide said "IMG has always been at the forefront of introducing premiere sporting events in India. We are proud to be associated with AIBA for the World Series Boxing. AIBA's expertise and authority in world boxing and sports management coupled with IMG's sports marketing expertise, global reach, and extensive media rights business will provide the ideal impetus to ensure that WSB reaches ardent boxing fans around the world. "

Col. PK Muralidharan Raja, General Secretary, Indian Boxing Federation (IBF) echoing the sentiments of Ivan and Ravi said that "Boxing had a great future in India and the World Series of Boxing would help in nurturing talents in India as seen in the recent Olympics where India won medals from non traditional strong holds. It would give a boost to the sports and attract more corporates to promote and sponsor the sports going by the enthusiastic response we have got in the past few months when this concept was introduced to us."

The WSB will be an annual recurring, global competition featuring franchises in three regional conferences: Asia, Europe and the Americas. Each region will initially be comprised of four city-based franchises, and each franchise will field a squad of 10 boxers across the five weight classes designated by AIBA. The competition will be comprised of three phases: A "Regular Season" of league matches between franchise teams, A Playoff series, and finally Individual championships for each weight class.

WSB would give a boost to the sport in all catchments areas of the franchisees and federations making the sport more popular even in countries where the following is limited. The growth of the WSB will enable federations to encourage more grassroots participation and greater support from respective governments and National Olympic Committees will lay a greater successful foundation of boxing in their respective countries.



The Format of World Series Boxing

Team Competition:
Teams in each region will compete against each other during the regular season. Each team will play its regional rivals four times - twice at home and twice away - resulting in a total of 12 matches per team. Each match will consist of five individual bouts, including one at each weight class. The top team from each of the three regions, plus a fourth (2nd best finisher) team will face each other in a play off format to determine the World Championship team.

Individual Championships:
The individual championships for each weight class will take place after the conclusion of the play-off series. The top two boxers in the regular season will compete for the individual title of World Champion.

Five Weight Categories: Bantam, Light, Middle, Light Heavy, Heavy

Schedule:
Sep-Dec 2010 Regular Season
Jan 2011 Play-off Series
Feb-Mar2011 Exhibition Matches
Apr 2011 Individual Championship Bouts

Rules & Scoring: The bout will be of five rounds, which would be three minutes each. The scores would be given by three judges on a 10-point system to be announced at the end of each bout. The boxers will not wear any headgear or vests.

 

Officials want to spice up boxing and find new audiences and funding by making it look more like a team sport.

With professional boxing splintered because of the array of different governing bodies and weight classifications, the amateur version hopes the new World Series of Boxing can strike a chord with disaffected fans.

In Milan last week, the International Amateur Boxing Association signed a World Series agreement with sports marketing agency IMG.

"There has already been a lot of work put into the World Series of Boxing and this illustrates the confidence both AIBA and IMG have in the WSB and with each other in making the project a great success," AIBA President Ching-Kuo Wu told AIBA executive committee members.

"Now we look forward to an exciting two years ahead building up to the launch."

The idea is to have 12 franchise teams, each made up of 12 fighters, who will contest 'matches' consisting of a set number of bouts.

Teams from across the world will be grouped into American-style conferences, which may be split up by continent.

Franchises will face the other teams in their conference before a grand final between the best sides overall.

Much like baseball or soccer, boxers will be able to be transferred between teams, meaning a Cuban could fight for an Asian team and a Thai could box for a European side.

The majority of fighters though will come from a team's locality.

The franchises are likely to be based and named after certain cities with media reports saying Delhi is keen to have a World Series club after middleweight boxer Vijender Kumar won a bronze for India at last year's Beijing Games - India's first in Olympic boxing.

Officials now say the country is ripe for boxing to try to gain a foothold among the sport-mad population. China also caught the boxing bug during the Games with light-flyweight Zou Shiming and light-heavyweight Zhang Xiaoping grabbing the country's first two fight gold medals.

IMG is well aware of the marketing possibilities the World Series could create.

"We look forward to working closely with AIBA and the national federations to further develop this exciting new boxing competition," said IMG Senior Vice-President Julian Brand.

Media reports have said Moscow, Chicago, Milan and even Casablanca are among other possible host cities for the franchises.