Olympics | The sports boss who fraternizes with Vladimir Putin drove his sports federation into chaos

of Paris the ones at the center of the gender uproar at the Olympics Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting was shelved last year from the World Boxing Championships due to gender-related doubts.

International Olympic Committee IOC told in exceptionally strict terms, that the International Boxing Association IBA decided on the matter in a sudden and arbitrary manner.

IBA is a sports association that personifies its chairman, a Russian businessman Umar Kremlovivwho is on good terms with the Russian president Vladimir Putin with.

Kremljov saved the IBA, which was in financial difficulties, but tied the union to Russia at the same time. The situation has not been good for the relationship between the sports association and the IOC.

of the IBA and IOC relations froze already in 2019 as a result of numerous corruption scandals. IBA has been accused of poor management and unclear financial management.

The situation worsened when Russia started its full-scale war of aggression in Ukraine in February 2022 and Kremljov continued with his pro-Russian decisions at the head of the IBA.

In June of last year, the IOC board recommended that the IOC no longer recognize the IBA headed by Kremlov as the sport’s umbrella organization.

After this, a new international association World Boxing was established for amateur boxing, to which the Finnish Boxing Association joined in the fall of 2023.

In the Russians the IBA in hand received support from the Russian energy company Gazprom for years.

The agreement with the gas giant was one of the first partnerships of the IBA after Kremlov became the president of the association in December 2020.

However, in May of last year, Kremljov was told by the sports media of Inside the Games according to which the contract is no longer valid.

“Our contract with Gazprom ended in December 2022. We are grateful to them for helping us in a difficult time,” he assured.

The gratitude is so strong that the Gazprom logo can still be found on the IBA from the website.

The Russians and Belarusian athletes were allowed to compete in the 2023 World Championships organized by the IBA as representatives of their countries.

Flags and other national emblems were also allowed to be displayed, unlike almost any other competition during the full-scale war started by Russia in Ukraine.

This caused Finland to boycott the Games. 17 countries and 19 national sports federations participated in the boycott, while Britain is represented at the World Cup by the federations of England, Scotland and Wales.

Khelif from Algeria and Lin from Taiwan, on the other hand, were involved in the competitions until their rejection.

Kremlinov argued the British magazine of The Guardian including rejection decision with dna tests.

He claimed that Khelif and Lin have XY chromosomes, which is why they were banned from the Games. By XY chromosomes, Kremljov was referring to male sex chromosomes.

The uproar over the boxers’ situation at the Olympics made the IBA react to its decision with a notice.

The sports federation said that it still stands behind the decision and condemned the match permit given by both the IOC and World Boxing to the duo.