IOC reacts sharply as IBA unveils plans to award prize money to Olympic medallists
Lausanne (Switzerland): The International Boxing Association (IBA) on Wednesday announced that it will award prize money to pugilists who will win medals in the upcoming Paris Olympic Games, the move getting a sharp reaction from the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The IBA, which is supported by Russian state-owned gas corporation Gazprom and has been thrown out of the Olympics by the IOC and its recognition withdrawn alleging lack of transparency in its funding, said it would follow the example of World Athletics, the global governing body of track and field competitions, in awarding prize money to medal winners in Paris.
While World Athletics announced that it will pay $50,000 to gold medallists, but nothing to the minor medallists at this year’s Paris Olympic Games, the IBA went a step further and said it will pay bonuses to gold, silver and bronze medallists from a total budget of $3.1 million.
Reacting to the IBA announcement, the IOC said it was “unclear where the money is coming from”.
“This total lack of financial transparency was exactly one of the reasons why the IOC withdrew its recognition of the IBA. The IBA was not prepared to transparently explain the sources of its financing or to explain its full financial dependency, at the time, on a single state-owned company, Gazprom,” the IOC said in a statement released by Christian Klaue, its Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Director.
The IBA is not involved in conducting boxing competitions in Tokyo and will not be allowed to do so in Paris either.
“Due to the suspension and the subsequent withdrawal of recognition by the IOC in 2023, the IBA had no involvement in either the qualification for or the organisation of the boxing tournament of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 and is not involved for Paris 2024, either. The qualifications and the Olympic tournaments were and are being organised by boxing units set up by the IOC, to protect the athletes, the National Boxing Federations and their respective National Olympic Committees (NOCs),” the IOC statement said.
The IOC once again reiterated that boxing was not part of the sports programme for the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028 and said the sport can be back on the roster only if it is organised by a “credible, well-governed International Federation”.
It also said that if any national federations follow the IBA, its boxers will not be able to participate in the Los Angeles Olympic Games.
“It is therefore already clear that any boxer whose National Federation adheres to the IBA will not be able to participate in the Olympic Games LA28. The respective NOC will have to exclude such a National Boxing Federation from its membership,” said the IOC statement.
The IBA is currently fighting a case against IOC in the International Court of Arbitration (CAS), the decision of which will make things clear for the next Olympic Games.
