USA Boxing officially splits from IBA (formerly AIBA) to join World Boxing International Federation

If you're wondering what the hell any of that means - basically IBA were the be-all end-all in amateur boxing for the better part of last century, and oversaw all major international tourney action. Whether a competitor wanted to go for World Championships or the Olympics (and for a select ambitious few, both) it was all handled by AIBA. That is until the International Olympic Committee banned them in 2019 for rampant corruption and mismanagement, with the IOC further threatening removal of boxing from the Games under the auspices of the newly rebranded IBA effective 2028. Enter the WBIF, formed just this month, hoping to salvage the sweet science's spot in the Olympiad.

It's a bit more complicated than just that, and involves lots of East Slav geopolitics (the IOC has banned Russian and Belarusian athletes in light of Putin's ongoing invasion of Ukraine last year; while the IBA has a current Russian president, Umar Kremlev, who in the last few years has transferred most operations to his native country including moving the IBA's headquarters there from Switzerland and installing mostly compatriots in key administrative positions, making a huge sponsorship deal with Russia's state gas company which is simultaneously openly funding the war efforts in Ukraine, and rejecting neutral third parties from appointing officials such as judges and referees) but the gist is that IOC wants nothing more to do with IBA the way things currently stand, which came very close to being a death knell for Olympic boxing. The formation of the WBIF is a hail-Mary pass by a coaltion of national governing bodies to prevent that worst case scenario.

Amateurs worldwide, however, could now be in the awkward position of choosing which accolade they want and by walking through one door perhaps closing the other door on themselves, depending on how petty either side wants to be. At least it beats having the freedom to pick an option taken away from them, I suppose.

 

tl;dr - for American non-pros (and those in other countries whose governing bodies have defected from the IBA to create a new alternative) the roadblock to vying for an Olympic medal has been lifted, but it may have come at the cost of being able to participate in the also prestigious amateur World Championships.

 

Cuba will probably stay IBA loyal as well for now, and that makes a pair of the world's traditionally strongest national amateur programs ...but yeah, got to imagine the UK and Japan and many others will be joining the USA on the other side of the fence. As respected as the AIBA world championships were their lineage dates only as far back as the 70s...and the Olympics are, well, the Olympics.

 

Who would have thought that only a few decades after the cold war ended the global rift in amateur boxing based on political divides, we would essentially have the same thing happen (and involving some of the same states as major players) - with the IOC and its affiliates tacitly supporting Ukraine (and barring Russian or Belarusian athletes from competing unless they do so under a neutral ad-hoc flag, although the Ukrainian government has threatened sanctions against its own athletes if they engage in any sports play with their "enemy" on even the IOC's terms) and the IBA standing doubled-down firm with Putin and his allies.

 

https://worldboxing.org/



Power move there...headquartered in Lausanne, SI - where AIBA used to be until the Kremlev regime.