International Boxing Association

The Association Internationale de Boxe Amateur (AIBA) was established on 29-30 November 1946 to govern the sport of boxing, succeeding the Federation Internationale de Boxe Amateur (FIBA). The organization would later be renamed as the International Boxing Association in 2007, but it would use the AIBA acronym until December 2021, when it was rebranded to IBA.

Men’s boxing had made its first Olympic appearance back at St. Louis 1904, and AIBA would hold the first edition of the AIBA Men’s World Boxing Championships at Havana 1974.

The organization recognized women’s boxing as an official discipline in 1994, and the first AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships would happen at the turn of the century, in 2001, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, United States. The London 2012 Games would welcome women’s boxing to the Olympic Programme for the first time.

Boxing was also introduced to the Youth Summer Olympics during the governance of the AIBA. Boys competed in Youth Olympic boxing since the competition’s inception at Singapore 2010, and girls’ events first appeared in its second edition, at Nanjing 2014.

In 2019, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted to rescind recognition of the AIBA, and, in June 2023, at a special meeting of the IOC Executive Board, it withdrew recognition of the IBA as the governing body of non-professional international boxing. On 22 June 2023, at an Extraordinary IOC Session, the IOC voted to expel the IBA from the Olympic Movement, the first time that any international federation was expelled from the IOC. The vote by the IOC Members was 69-1 in favor of expulsion. At the Paris 2024 IOC Session in July 2024, the IOC voted to remove the IBA from their list of recognized IFs in favor of the sport’s new federation, World Boxing. The IBA has responded to this by changing course and began promoting bare knuckle boxing competitions, which were last held on a regular basis in the 19th century.

As of January 2026, the IBA has 177 member national federations. The organization’s main office is located in Lausanne, Switzerland, and its current president is Russia’s Umar Kremlyov.