This Tuesday, the Festival of Boxing opened in Dubai with the inauguration of the International Boxing Association – IBA – World Championships, scheduled from 2 to 13 December. The participation of the Kazakhstan Boxing Federation, the NOC of which is led by Gennadiy Golovkin, president of World Boxing – WB –, has reignited an institutional debate: did Thomas Bach move too quickly in backing WB? Is Olympic boxing being run in much the same way as under IBA, or are there meaningful differences between the two organisations? Is it simply old wine in a new bottle?
The appearance of the Kazakh delegation comes at a moment shaped by years of tension between the IOC and IBA over governance, transparency and compliance. After withdrawing recognition from IBA, the IOC granted provisional status to WB as the organisation responsible for safeguarding the future of Olympic boxing. However, Kazakhstan’s presence at an IBA event risks unsettling the stability the IOC had hoped to restore.
A federation aligned with WB competing at its rival’s flagship event
The fact that the Kazakhstan Boxing Federation is competing at the IBA World Championships while its leader, Gennadiy Golovkin, serves as president of WB presents a significant contradiction. The national federation of WB’s top official is taking part in a tournament overseen by an organisation from which the IOC distanced itself due to longstanding governance failures. With no public explanation clarifying this dual presence, the situation introduces an institutional inconsistency at a time when WB was expected to embody a more transparent and IOC-aligned model.
This comes as the IOC’s expectations have not unfolded as initially anticipated after Thomas Bach advanced WB’s provisional recognition and designated it to manage Olympic boxing for the Los Angeles 2028 Games. Following the split with IBA, the IOC envisioned a more predictable and coherent regulatory framework; yet divided federations, overlapping affiliations and uncertain national alignments point to a more fragile landscape than originally intended.
Eight million dollars in prize money and an economic model under scrutiny
The 2025 IBA World Championships will distribute 8 million dollars in prize money, with 300,000 awarded to each gold medallist per weight category, 150,000 for silver, 75,000 for bronze and 10,000 for fifth-place finishers. Fifty percent of each prize goes to the boxer, 25 percent to the coaches and 25 percent to the national federation, concentrating most financial benefits at the elite level. This raises the broader question of where this funding truly comes from and whether the model supports grassroots development, youth pathways and the global expansion of boxing—areas many federations continue to flag as structurally underfunded and which do not align with the IOC’s approach to sustainable sport development.
IBA’s financial structure has been closely linked to Gazprom since their partnership agreement in 2021, and recent remarks from IBA officials indicate that the relationship likely continues. With no official clarification on the precise sources of the prize fund, the scale of the distribution invites questions over whether part of the money remains directly or indirectly tied to the Russian company. This dynamic widens the gap between IBA’s economic model and the IOC’s standards, which emphasise transparency, political neutrality and resource allocation aimed at strengthening the sport’s global foundations.
Russia competing under its own flag
At this event, athletes from Russia are competing under the Russian flag, a practice contrary to the Olympic Charter and to the criteria applied by the IOC within the Olympic Movement. Ahead of Milano Cortina, Russian and Belarusian athletes may only compete as neutrals and under a series of conditions and requirements, underscoring the gap between Olympic principles and the decisions made by IBA. Combined with the historical financial role of Gazprom, this divergence adds further complexity to the governance of international boxing.
The international boxing situation is becoming particularly complex when one considers that delegations from China, Australia, Belarus, Brazil, Cuba, England, Spain, Iran, Pakistan, Israel, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Senegal, South Africa, Turkey, the USA, the UAE, as well as a large number of African and South American countries, along with several countries from Europe, Asia, and Oceania.
One conclusion can be drawn from all this: boxing is not only divided internationally but also at the national level.
It is also clear that the new IOC president has inherited another problem that she will be called upon to resolve without having had any part in creating it.
The IOC maintains WB’s provisional recognition and its role in delivering Olympic boxing for 2028, at a time when federations operating across rival structures and ongoing questions about financial models bring the opening issue back into focus: whether meaningful differences truly exist between IBA and WB, or whether the transition of recent years continues to leave unresolved questions about the institutional direction of Olympic boxing.
