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03-05-2023
LAUSANNE: International Boxing Association (IBA) President Umar Kremlev has blasted the national federations who broke away from the body to form a new world boxing federation, describing the officials as “black sheep” and “hyenas” who do not belong in sport.
A group, including the United States and the United Kingdom, announced a new federation World Boxing last month in a breakaway aimed at securing the troubled sport’s Olympic future while seeking recognition from the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
With representatives from Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, Sweden and the US, World Boxing has an interim executive board and it said there would be no bar on any national federation being a member of both bodies but Kremlev, who is in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, for the Men’s World Boxing Championships, said the IBA is the only international association that governs the sport.
“We say that there’s always a black sheep in our family, there are always people who go their own ways … Someone tried to register an international association from their garage, why should we even consider them,” the Russian told a news conference.
“Those who want to leave and go to another association, all I can say is: we have only one association. We have the right to govern boxing and the IBA has the right to organize tournaments.
“Some officials decided they wanted to create their own association, but I think its all clear and simple. Some sports functionaries are like hyenas, like predators, they need to understand that they do not belong to sport.”
The US tops the all-time Olympic boxing medal table with 50 golds and 117 medals while the UK is third.
USA Boxing terminated its IBA membership last week, committing its “full support” to World Boxing’s efforts to seek provisional IOC recognition.
The IBA was suspended by the IOC in 2019 over governance, finance, refereeing and ethical issues. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
