The IBA family has grown after four provisional candidates were approved by members today at the IBA Ordinary Congress as an impressive 170 National Federation members made their voices heard in Dubai.

SwissBoxing was welcomed back following its resignation from IBA under new leadership, a direction that was then reversed at their last General Assembly. Granted provisional membership by IBA before the Congress, members supported their return by a majority of vote.

In addition, the US Boxing Federation, a new organization led by legendary Roy Jones Jr was formed following the disaffiliation of USA Boxing. Oceania gained two new members as the Norfolk Island Boxing Association and Tuvalu Amateur Boxing Association were accepted.

Three organizations had their memberships terminated by the Congress, as the Czech Boxing Association’s, German Boxing Association’s and Dutch Boxing Federation’s termination was approved.

Following these terminations, President Umar Kremlev said IBA will welcome other organizations from countries no longer associated with the governing body.

President Kremlev said: ‘We are very welcome to countries being part of the boxing family, but unfortunately in several countries we have problems with boxing associations, and we made decisions on the entities, but not the countries.’

‘We already have candidates who want to apply for IBA membership like US Boxing Federation did. We are open to candidates from countries which leave IBA or that will be terminated by the decision of the Congress,’ he added.

In his report, IBA Secretary General and CEO Chris Roberts OBE announced the event calendar for 2024, which is set to include 16 Champions’ Nights, an increase from 10 this year. Zagreb is slated to host the first of these on 13 January. Roberts also spoke about securing contracts with boxers and officials to bring athletes into professionalism through IBA Champions’ Night.

The IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships is to take place in Astana, Kazakhstan, with Armenia in talks over the IBA Men’s World Boxing Championships, having previously held the IBA Junior World Boxing Championships this year.

Positive development was outlined as 64 courses were delivered in 2023 to 1332 students. The majority of these were 1 Star Coaches Development, with 805 students in 35 sessions. There were also 1, 2 and 3 Star seminars for referees and judges, cut technician and technical official courses. IBA Secretary General highlighted the Fair Chance Team and Neutral Team support from IBA as well as the launch of the Sports Management Course with the ISDE in Madrid, with 30 positions to be filled in its inaugural year.

On Instagram, IBA had a 15.6% increase in reach and over 18.1 million views on its most popular TikTok video.

The audit report was approved by a majority of votes, so were the previous minutes from the 2022 IBA Ordinary Congress.

There was an approval of the amendments to the IBA Constitution, some of the changes included an update to resigning members. Resignations will take effect from the January 1 following notification.

Provisional members can be approved at either the IBA Extraordinary or Ordinary Congress now. Previously, this could only be done at the Ordinary Congress. There will now be space for a Normalisation Committee in National Federations and Continental Confederations who are having an internal crisis instead of suspension, allowing time for improvements rather than leading to an immediate sanction.

Rounding off the 2023 IBA Ordinary Congress, Lourdes Avendaño Rodrigues of Bolivia was elected as a Board member of the IBA. She will sit as a representative for the American Boxing Confederation. 

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