The International Boxing Association (IBA) has confirmed that the upcoming IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships 2023 in New Delhi, India will welcome an IOC monitoring team led by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The Women’s World Championships are set to take place 15-26 March 2023 and will welcome more than 65 nations and 300 boxers.

The attendance of the upcoming Women’s World Championships by PwC is part of the important compliance assessment process of continuous monitoring of the IBA and its ongoing governance reform, practices, and activities. The IBA is confident that the PwC team will see first-hand IBA’s best practices regarding technical and competitions rules, specifically its heralded bout review process.

The PwC team will work in parallel with the IBA onsite, as Prof. Richard McLaren and his McLaren Independent Investigation Team (MIIT) who are responsible for the background vetting check of the Competition Officials at the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championship 2023 in New Delhi and the IBA Men’s World Boxing Championship 2023 in Tashkent.

The IBA’s commitment to ensuring the utmost integrity in the selection and evaluation processes of all technical officials is paramount and the verification of IBA’s reform efforts on this front will be a much-welcomed step in the important pathway leading to the lifting of the suspension of IBA’s recognition by the IOC ahead of Paris 2024 and with a view boxings place in LA 2028.

The governance reforms by IBA do not sit solely regarding technical and competitions rules, as over the last two years reforms have been entrenched in IBA through the ratification of numerous new regulations and policies to the effect of implementing and enforcing IOC Rules and Principles and to follow the Governance Reform Group recommendations, and the highest ethics and integrity standards. In particular:

• AIBA Code of Ethics on 30 June 2021;
• 2021 IBA Constitution on 12 December 2021;
• IBA Technical and Competitions Rules on 1 September 2022;
• IBA Regulations on Congress and Elections on 20 April 2022;
• IBA Financial Regulations on 15 July 2022;
• IBA Organisational Regulations on 3 August 2022;
• IBA Boxing Independent Integrity Unit (BIIU) Rules on 23 September 2022;
• IBA Disciplinary and Ethics Code on 5 November 2022;
• IBA BIIU Procedural Rules on 5 November 2022;
• 2022 IBA Constitution on 11 December 2022;
• IBA Financial Regulations on 9 February 2023;
• IBA Financial Support Program Regulations on 9 February 2023;
• IBA Regulations on Corporate Governance Committees on 9 February 2023;
• IBA Technical & Competition Rules on 9 February 2023.

The above demonstrates that IBA has endorsed and approved rules and policies to enhance transparency, good governance, financial governance and sustainability, fair and clean sport, referees’ education, scoring and Olympic qualification system, match manipulation and fixing. Moreover, IBA appointed the international recognised worldwide McLaren Independent Investigation Team (MIIT) to conduct vetting checks, investigations etc. In addition, IBA is in the process of setting up the Boxing Independent Integrity Unit (BIIU).

The IBA would like to reaffirm its strong commitment to the vision, mission and objectives set out in the IOC Code of Ethics and its Implementing Provisions, including the Principles of Good Governance within the Olympic Movement and looks forward to receiving the results of the PwC compliance assessment.

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