As boxing approaches the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, its global governance, World Boxing stands at one of the most consequential turning points in the sport’s history.
World Boxing (WB), formed barely two years ago as a reform-driven alternative to the suspended International Boxing Association (IBA), now carries the provisional mandate to run Olympic boxing an assignment that comes with unprecedented scrutiny and immense operational pressure. With provisional recognition from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and full responsibility for delivering LA28 qualification, World Boxing enters 2026 facing a fragile balance of opportunity and risk.
The outgoing president, Boris van der Vorst, who steps down after the November 2025 Congress, has made it clear that WB’s survival depends on two pillars: restoring competitive integrity through technology, and building the financial base necessary to function as a modern Olympic federation. His tenure secured critical wins that many believed impossible two years ago.
The IOC’s provisional recognition in February 2025, ARISF membership shortly after, and finally the reinstatement of boxing on the LA28 program in March 2025 all validated WB’s governance reforms. But each milestone also raised expectations. Boxing remains in the Olympics only because WB now exists; any governance lapse risks reversing that progress. World Boxing’s integrity strategy hinges on a groundbreaking AI-driven bout review system that aims to eliminate the scoring controversies that plagued its predecessor.
The system, still under development, intends to track punch accuracy, placement, ring control and sustained dominance providing an objective data layer to support judging. Rather than replacing human judges, AI is meant to strengthen their decisions, creating transparency for athletes and fans. Instant review tools, enriched with AI analytics, are expected to resolve scoring disputes quickly and decisively.
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The aim is for full operational deployment by LA28, but even Van der Vorst acknowledges this timeline is not guaranteed, given the technology’s complexity and WB’s limited resources. Still, the initiative signals a new era: boxing must move to objective, auditable scoring if it is to retain Olympic trust.
But WB’s operational challenges go far beyond technology. The organization is functioning on an estimated annual budget of just over €1 million a fraction of what is typically required to govern a global Olympic sport. This financial shortfall limits its ability to staff specialized roles, run large-scale qualification events, and build the technical backbone needed to support tools like the AI pilot. The outgoing president has been blunt: funding is a major challenge, and without aggressive revenue growth from sponsorships, media rights and external partnerships WB risks falling behind its own commitments. The incoming leadership will inherit both the promise of global legitimacy and the near-urgent need to scale resources.
The November 2025 Presidential election, now set to take place in Rome, will therefore shape boxing’s Olympic trajectory. Two candidates represent diverging but complementary visions. Kazakhstan’s Gennadiy Golovkin, the Olympic silver medallist and global boxing icon, brings international visibility and athlete credibility. His leadership would project star power and possibly attract broader commercial interest.
On the other hand, Greece’s Mariolis Charilaos, known for administrative reforms and transparency during his tenure at the Hellenic Boxing Federation, represents a governance-first approach essential for satisfying IOC compliance standards. Whichever direction the sport chooses, the new president will assume office at the height of Olympic pressure, with the LA28 qualification system still awaiting finalization.
That qualification structure is central to WB’s mission. For LA28, boxing will feature full gender parity with seven weight classes and 124 athletes each for men and women. The pathway will combine continental qualifiers, world qualifiers and critically the new World Boxing Ranking System (WBRS).
This ranking system is built to ensure fairer draws and avoid early clashes between top contenders, addressing past inequities where high-profile athletes, like India’s Nikhat Zareen at Paris 2024, suffered from unseeded placements. For WBRS to work, however, global participation is essential. If top nations continue to split across the rival IBA, the rankings risk losing their universal credibility.
Membership remains a geopolitical tightrope. While WB has secured 125 national federations, including 10 of the 11 top medal-winning nations from Paris 2024, the IBA’s exclusivity rule still forces federations to pick sides. The IOC’s ultimatum that only WB-affiliated nations will have Olympic access has accelerated momentum toward WB, but the transition is not without resistance. High IBA funding levels continue to tempt some federations, underscoring why WB’s own financial stability, or lack of it, could become a decisive factor. Nations need assurance that WB can consistently deliver major events, ranking opportunities and the complex global qualification structure.
Operationally, WB still shows signs of its youth. The relocation of its 2025 Congress from India to Italy due to travel-processing challenges highlighted the organization’s logistical limitations. Over the next two years, WB must run a full qualification calendar across multiple continents, each with standardized integrity controls, ranking events, and technical delivery. Administrative bandwidth not just policy will determine success.
As World Boxing enters the next phase, its mission shifts from legitimization to implementation. The foundation is set: governance reforms are recognized, Olympic inclusion is secured, and technological ambition is clear. But execution financial, administrative and technological will define whether boxing’s Olympic future becomes stable or remains precarious.
If the AI integrity system is validated, if the WBRS is universally adopted, and if the organization stabilizes its finances, WB could deliver one of the most meaningful governance turnarounds in Olympic sport. But the next two years will test its capacity more intensely than the previous two.
The survival of boxing in the Olympic movement may depend on how quickly and confidently World Boxing can grow into the role it has fought to earn.
