Johnny Watterson: Boxers’ Olympic ambitions caught in crossfire between governing bodies

Dear oh dear boxing. And it’s not even an Olympic year. Just as golf is about LIV, rugby is about striking Welsh players and football is about Manchester United leaning towards blood money, a proxy war with the Russians is what boxing has become.

Ireland has decided to stand alongside the USA, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Britain, Sweden, Canada, Poland and the Czech Republic by not sending boxing teams to this year’s men’s and women’s World Boxing Championships.

On the ground, that means farewell to Amy Broadhurst and Lisa O’Rourke defending the world titles they won last year. Adieu to a chance to compete for a cut of the $2.4 million (€2.26m) prize fund on offer in India.

Bye bye to Olympic champion Kellie Harrington having a chance of winning $100,000 for a gold medal. Say svidaniya to an opportunity to qualify for the Olympic Games in Paris next year and adios to Ireland’s 23 World Championship medals becoming at least 24.

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If the Gazprom-loving, Russia- and Belarus-embracing, Court of Arbitration for Sport-ignoring president of the International Boxing Association (IBA) Umar Kremlev (not his real name) sees himself as a disrupter, he’s living up to the image.

Kremlev’s overtly pro-Russian policies within the IBA kicked in hard last November when it allowed boxers from Russia and Belarus to compete with national flags and anthems, despite the war in Ukraine and against International Olympic Committee (IOC) guidance.

But the dispute is about more than the war in Ukraine. It is also about the character of the IBA and Kremlev, who was voted in as president by acclamation (no ballot) last year. That success arrived after the IBA had disqualified Kremlev’s only rival, Boris van der Vorst, on the eve of the vote with questionable use of the Independent Boxing Integrity Unit, the greatest oxymoron in world sport.

There are other issues including the IBA’s opaque financial dealings, the nature of its relationship with Gazprom, the majority Russian state-owned energy corporation headquartered in St Petersburg, its ethics and the ongoing fallout from the corrupted 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

Amid some pretty serious misgivings, the IBA was suspended by the IOC in 2019. Subsequently, the IOC ran the boxing tournament in Tokyo, not the IBA as would normally be the case. The IOC will also run the event in Paris next year.

Boxing itself, meanwhile, has been left outside the Olympic tent, having been told it will not be on the roster for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

This week the IBA upped the ante. Despite being stripped of its powers regarding Olympic matters, it said it would accept no qualification process for Paris 2024 other than this year’s World Championships and a last chance open event taking place in May 2024.

But the IOC, having declared it would take over the running of boxing events for the Olympics, including qualification, had already approved a system through regional competitions, which would be the European Games for Irish boxers. Two world qualification tournaments were also planned for 2024.

USA boxing, coached by Wexford’s Billy Walsh, called the IBA “at best incompetent” and its plans for qualifiers as “false and misleading”, claiming it was an attempt to sabotage the Paris Olympics and confuse boxers around the world.

In that it has been successful. However, the immediate burning issue is whether the current Mexican standoff between the IBA and the IOC will mitigate against Ireland’s athletes competing in what they consider to be the most important tournament of their careers.

What is apparent is a smouldering heap, a boxing federation, suspended by the IOC, organising its own Olympic qualification pathway in defiance of the Olympic body. If all follows through to plan there could be two sets of ‘qualified’ boxers claiming to be legitimate Paris-bound athletes.

This arrives after over a decade of dumpster-fire governance. International auditor KPMG refused to certify boxing’s accounts for two years (2015-2016) before former president Dr Wu Ching-Ku was banned for life following serious allegations of financial mismanagement and accounting irregularities.

Gafur Rakhimov, an Uzbek businessman and sports administrator, was then installed as president, where he remained for a tumultuous 18 months until his resignation in July 2019.

Rakimov’s election was the catalyst for the IBA being stripped of its recognition as the Olympic governing body for boxing. Although he was never charged with a crime in any country, Rakhimov failed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia in 2020 to have his name removed from a US sanctions list for alleged links to international heroin trafficking.

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Boxing’s chain of custody of Taiwan’s Wu, Uzbeki Rakimov and Russian Kremlev, aka Umar Lutfuloev, has not endeared itself to the international sporting scene. The IOC, with significant European support, are now refusing to back off.

“Following an investigation and report by an IOC Inquiry Committee in 2019, recognition of the International Boxing Association was suspended by the IOC. This suspension is still in force today,” it said four days ago.

For anything involving the Games, the IOC are the safest bet for Ireland. But athletes need certainty in planning and training as they construct lives around boxing and Olympic cycles.

The last thing they need to provide those comforts is a belligerent IBA governing body with its ripe historical baggage moving closer to a Russia engaged in catastrophic European conflict.