The International Olympic Committee executive board has recommended the inclusion of boxing at the 2028 Olympic Games.

It was in February when the IOC granted provisional recognition to World Boxing, making boxing’s inclusion at the Games in Los Angeles likelier, and the recommendation that has followed will next be put to a vote at the IOC gathering in Greece.

“After the provisional recognition of World Boxing in February we were in the position to take this decision so that this recommendation has to go to the session,” Thomas Bach, the president of the IOC, said on Monday. “I am confident the session will approve it.” 

Despite its popularity as an Olympic sport, boxing had not been included by the IOC on the initial program for LA 2028.

The IOC had demanded that the national boxing federations create a new global governing body, having run the boxing competition at Paris 2024 as a consequence of having stripped the International Boxing Association of recognition in 2023 over its failure to implement reforms on governance and finance. World Boxing, which has more than 80 national federations as members, was launched in 2023.

“This is a very significant and important decision for Olympic boxing and takes the sport one step closer to being restored to the Olympic program,” read a statement from Boris van der Vorst, the president of World Boxing.

“I have no doubt it will be very positively received by everyone connected with boxing, at every level throughout the world, who understands the critical importance to the future of the sport of boxing continuing to remain a part of the Olympic movement.” 

According to the IOC, only athletes whose national federations are members of World Boxing by the time of the start of the qualification events for the 2028 Olympics will be eligible to compete in LA.

The IOC had suspended the IBA in 2019 because of issues relating to governance, finance, refereeing and ethics. It also did not involve it in running the boxing events at the Tokyo Games in 2021.