On Wednesday, the International Olympic Committee criticized a proposal from a placed governing body that do pay boxers who won at the approaching Paris Olympics.
The International Boxing Association ( IBA ) made plans earlier on Wednesday to pay medal winners for the boxing competitions. The IBA, which has no involvement with the Paris Games, refrained from doing so, and claimed that the IBA, which has long been a source of tension and a cause of the IBA’s expulsion from the Olympics, was hardly prepared to explain the solutions of its funding.
” As always with the IBA, it is unclear where the money is coming from”, the IOC said in a figured speech. ” One of the reasons the IOC withdrew its reputation of the IBA was that there was a complete lack of financial transparency,” he said.
According to the IBA proposal, each fighter and coach who advances to the quarterfinals in competitions—for both men and women and in all weight classes—would have been awarded$ 100, 000 for winning a gold medal,$ 50, 000 for silver and$ 25, 000 for bronze from a$ 3.1 million pool. National institutions would have also received compensation for their successful athletes.
In a speech made before the IOC judgement, IBA leader Umar Kremlev said,” Our players and their work must get appreciated.” The IBA offers options and makes a significant investment in our athletes. They continue to serve as the focal point, and we will continue to support them at all levels.
The proposed bills are the most recent volley in the conflict between the IOC and IBA, who have been at possibilities for decades over how the game is run. On the advice of its administrative committee, which ruled that promised modifications were never made, the IOC voted last year to reduce its reputation of the boxing organization.
Due to a lack of financial supervision and problems over good attending and judging of its events, the IOC suspended its reputation of the IBA in 2019. Even after the Olympics were delayed a year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the IOC managed the boxer program in place of the IBA during the Tokyo Games.
The IBA, an institution of some european- level federations, is run by Kremlev, who was elected its chairman in soon 2020. Kremlev established many reform boards and increased the number of weight classes for both men and women, promising to clear up the governing body in the face of fraud claims. Importantly, he also included the exact prize money as the upcoming Olympics ‘ World Championships.
Since taking over the IBA, Kremlev’s relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin had been in the IOC’s mind. Some renowned red flags have been Kremlev’s antagonism to separate referees and judges for fights, the evacuation of its offices from Switzerland to Russia, turning the IBA into a marketing system for Kremlev himself, according to a 2022 report in The Washington Post, and the IBA’s sponsorship agreement with Gazprom, Russia’s state- owned energy company. Gazprom has been a supporter of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022.
In response to the IOC’s banishment of Russian and Belarusian athletes from the Tokyo Olympics, the IBA briefly banned Ukrainian fighters from its sanctioned competitions in September 2022. ( Athletes from those nations were permitted to compete under the IOC’s flag and emblem during the COVID-delayed Games, not their native or sponsoring nations. ) Additionally, Kremlev was given an additional year in power by the IBA, which did not decide to hold a presidential election in 2022.
Multiple countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, boycotted the World Championships in 2023 in response to the IBA’s decision to allow Russia and Belarus to compete with no impediment. Additionally, those countries joined World Boxing, an IOC-sponsored sport that needs more funding to add boxing to the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
While its winning amounts are larger, the IBA’s plan mirrors that from World Athletics, which has offered to pay medalists in the track and field events.