NEW DELHI: The International Boxing Asso­ci­ation (IBA) on Monday upped the ante in its battle for control of Olympic boxing by accusing the Inter­national Olympic Commi­ttee (IOC) of misuse of info­rmation about its officials.

In an open letter to IOC chief Thomas Bach and executive board members before their meeting in Lausanne on Tuesday, the IBA said it had “deep concerns” regarding basic IOC governance, impartiality and transparency principles during the monitoring process ahead of next year’s Paris Olympics.

There was no immediate response to a Reuters req­uest for comment from the IOC.

The IOC suspended the IBA in 2019 over governance, finance, refereeing and ethical issues and did not involve it in running the boxing events at the Tokyo Olympics. The IOC also plans to stage its own boxing qualifier for Paris.

The IBA said it was concerned about confidential data relating to its competition officials, adding that the Paris 2024 Boxing Unit had contacted it about acting as volunteer officials at qualification competitions and the Games.

“This was done without prior approval or communication to IBA with whom the competition officials are certified and showed a lack of basic communication that demonstrates once again the lack of transparency and cooperation with the IBA from the respective IOC staff,” the IBA said in its letter.

It added the IOC’s actions were in breach of a data transfer agreement signed in 2019.

“The IBA therefore will reserve all rights to seek redress before the competent court against IOC to request damages for breach of the agreement, illegitimate use of our intellectual property and breach of the General Data Protection Regulation amongst other breaches in which the IOC has committed,” it said.

Relations between the IOC and the IBA further soured following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.

Amateur boxing’s governing body defied IOC guidance and lifted a ban on Russian and Belarusian boxers competing under their flags last October.

Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2023