IBA warns that the Olympic model must urgently change its treatment of athletes
International Boxing Association President Umar Kremlev on Friday, June 12, 2026, reopened one of the most sensitive questions in contemporary Olympic sport: whether athletes who create the value of the Olympic Games should be directly financially rewarded. According to a report by the portal Inside the Games, Kremlev said that the Olympic movement risks a long-term decline if the IOC continues to use athletes commercially while failing to provide them with more direct and visible compensation. His message comes at a moment when the debate about money, athletes' rights and revenue distribution in the Olympic system has sharpened again ahead of the cycle leading to the Los Angeles 2028 Games. For some time, the IBA has been trying to present its own model of rewarding boxers as an alternative to a system in which Olympic revenues are redirected primarily through international federations, national Olympic committees and development programmes. However, because of the deep institutional conflict between the IBA and the IOC, Kremlev's statements also have a broader political-sporting context that goes beyond the issue of prize money alone.
Kremlev claims that the value of the Games is not returned sufficiently to athletes
Kremlev, according to Inside the Games, assessed that the Olympic system must be urgently reformed because global attention, media rights, sponsorships and marketing contracts are built around athletes' performances, while many of them still depend on scholarships, national programmes or personal sponsors. Such an assessment fits with earlier positions of the IBA, which in February 2026 announced that it was ready to pay rewards to boxers at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles as well if the IOC did not change its own policy toward direct rewards for competitors. According to that IBA announcement, Kremlev believes that athletes, coaches and national federations must have a clearer share in the value they produce through appearances at the biggest competitions. The IBA claims that this is not merely a marketing issue, but a matter of the structure of sports governance and the financial security of careers that are often short, expensive and uncertain. In his public statement, Kremlev therefore presented reform as a question of balance between the Olympic ideal, the market value of the Games and the right of athletes to be recognised as the central part of that system.
The debate is not new, but it gained new weight after athletes and former Olympians publicly criticised positions according to which direct rewards should not be part of the Olympic model. According to reports by international media, IOC President Kirsty Coventry clarified that her opposition refers primarily to medal rewards, because such a system would benefit only a smaller number of athletes, while the IOC wants support that covers a wider circle of competitors during their careers and after their careers end. Kremlev and the IBA interpret that argument differently, believing that development programmes do not exclude the need for direct rewards for those who compete and achieve results on the Olympic stage. This difference reveals the fundamental dispute: the IOC emphasises solidarity and redistribution through existing institutions, while the IBA insists on transparent payments to athletes, coaches and federations.
The IBA cites rewards for boxers from Paris as an example
In February 2026, the IBA announced that in Los Angeles 2028 it could repeat the payment model it had also announced for boxers connected with the Paris 2024 Games. According to official IBA data, more than three million US dollars were planned for that programme, with gold medallists supposed to receive a total package of 100,000 dollars. In that structure, as the IBA stated, 50,000 dollars were intended for the male or female boxer, 25,000 dollars for the coach, and 25,000 dollars for the national federation. Silver medals were linked to a total reward of 50,000 dollars, bronze medals to 25,000 dollars, while fifth-placed boxers were supposed to receive 10,000 dollars each. The IBA highlights this model as proof that it is possible to publicly announce amounts, define beneficiaries and include the broader sports team, not only the athlete standing on the podium.
Such a structure also has a communication function, because the IBA wants to show that direct rewards do not have to be contrary to the development of sport. By including coaches and national federations, Kremlev is trying to argue that money can be directed toward the whole system that creates an elite athlete. Still, the position of the IBA in the Olympic system is significantly different than it was several years ago, which makes its announcements complex. The IOC first suspended the IBA's Olympic recognition in 2019, and then formally withdrew it at a session held on June 22, 2023, citing problems of governance, financial transparency and integrity. Because of this, the IBA is no longer the international federation that governs boxing in the Olympic movement, so each of its financial announcements ahead of LA28 exists in parallel with the Olympic qualification system now led by World Boxing.
The IOC invokes solidarity, not rewards for medals
The International Olympic Committee states in official documents and announcements that it does not operate as a classic commercial organisation, but returns most of its revenue to the sports system. According to the IOC announcement accompanying the 2024 Annual Report, during the period from 2021 to 2024, 90 percent of revenue was redistributed, which the IOC presented as the equivalent of 4.7 million US dollars per day to help athletes and sports organisations at different levels. The IOC defends such a model by claiming that Olympic money must serve not only medal winners but also national Olympic committees, international federations, development programmes, scholarships and projects that enable athletes from less developed systems to compete. In July 2024, the IOC Executive Board also approved an increase in the Olympic Solidarity budget for the period from 2025 to 2028 to 650 million dollars, with an increase in programmes of direct support for athletes. According to the IOC, this broad model of solidarity is precisely the foundation of Olympic financing.
Critics of such an approach, including the IBA, claim that redistribution through the system does not always give athletes a sufficiently clear picture of how much value they actually receive. Kremlev's rhetoric particularly targets the difference between high revenues from television rights, sponsorship contracts and marketing programmes and the everyday financial reality of athletes who often have to finance preparation, medical care, travel and living expenses. The IOC, meanwhile, warns that simply introducing cash rewards for medals could open the issue of inequality between sports, disciplines and national systems that already have very different financing possibilities. In this tension, both sides use the same argument, but from opposite perspectives: the athlete must be at the centre of the system. The difference lies in whether the athlete's central place should mean a direct payment for a result or broader institutional support that does not depend only on a medal.
The example of athletics changed the tone of the debate
The debate was further changed by the decision of World Athletics, which in April 2024 announced that it would reward Olympic winners in athletics in Paris with 50,000 US dollars each. According to the official announcement by World Athletics, this was the first case in which an international sports federation introduced prize money at the Olympic Games, with the intention of directly returning to athletes part of the revenue that the federation receives from the Olympic system. World Athletics also announced at the time a plan to extend the model in Los Angeles 2028 to silver and bronze medallists, although the final structure was to be determined closer to the Games. That decision opened space for other federations and organisations to present the issue of direct rewards as a modernisation of sport, rather than as a departure from Olympic values. In this environment, the IBA positions itself as one of the loudest advocates of the idea that athletes should see a concrete financial benefit from events that create a global audience.
However, the model applied by athletics cannot simply be copied across all sports. International federations have different revenues, different costs, different market power and different relationships with national federations. Wealthier sports can introduce rewards more easily, while smaller sports could fall even further behind if an expectation were created that every Olympic federation must pay similar amounts. For this reason, the issue of athlete compensation is increasingly being connected with transparency of Olympic revenues, clearer rules for the use of sponsorship rights and long-term programmes to protect athletes after the end of their careers. Kremlev's criticism of the IOC begins with prize money, but in fact touches on a broader question: how the Olympic movement can maintain credibility in a period when the Games are simultaneously a sporting ideal and a global commercial product.
Boxing in Los Angeles has a new Olympic administrator
The context of boxing is particularly important because the IBA no longer has the status of an Olympic-recognised international federation. According to its announcement, the IOC withdrew recognition from the IBA in 2023 after a long-running dispute in which problems of governance, financing and competition integrity were mentioned. The Court of Arbitration for Sport later rejected the IBA's appeal against that decision, and the IOC continued looking for a new body that could take over the Olympic role in boxing. In February 2025, the IOC Executive Board provisionally recognised World Boxing as the international federation for boxing within the Olympic movement. A few weeks later, at the 144th IOC Session in Costa Navarino in Greece, boxing was approved for the programme of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games.
According to the official World Boxing announcement of May 13, 2026, the IOC approved the qualification system for the boxing competition at LA28, and the competition will for the first time in Olympic history have complete gender equality in the number of places. A total of 248 quota places are planned, 124 for men and 124 for women, with seven weight categories in each competition. The qualification pathway, according to World Boxing, consists of three global competitions and five continental tournaments, giving boxers more opportunities to qualify for the Games. The first qualification event is expected to be the 2027 World Boxing Championships in Kazakhstan, followed by continental qualifications and final world qualification tournaments in 2028. This has established an operational framework for Olympic boxing in which the IBA has no official governing role, but still seeks to influence the debate about boxers' financial rights.
The institutional conflict also shapes the message about reform
Kremlev's statement about a possible long-term decline of the Olympic movement is therefore not an isolated criticism of the financial model, but part of the ongoing conflict between the IBA and the IOC. The IBA is trying to present itself as an organisation that directly invests in boxers and their teams, while the IOC stresses that, precisely because of problems within the IBA, it had to protect the future of Olympic boxing. According to the IOC, decisions on suspension and withdrawal of recognition were linked to the need to ensure good governance, transparency and the integrity of competitions. According to the IBA, on the other hand, the Olympic leadership ignores the needs of athletes and maintains a system in which revenues are not returned sufficiently directly to those who compete. These two narratives are difficult to separate, because behind the debate on rewards lies a struggle for legitimacy in international boxing.
For athletes, the most important question is whether the debate will turn into more concrete, predictable and fairer forms of support. Direct medal rewards can help the most successful athletes, but they do not necessarily solve the financial problems of athletes who prepare for years and do not reach the podium. Broader solidarity funds can cover a larger number of competitors, but they often function invisibly and indirectly, so athletes do not always see a clear relationship between Olympic revenues and their own livelihood. That is precisely why pressure on the IOC, international federations and national Olympic committees will probably not stop after individual statements or programmes. Los Angeles 2028 could become the first major Olympic competition at which the issue of athlete compensation will be as politically important as the organisational, security and sporting preparation of the Games.
The broader significance of the debate for the Olympic movement
Kremlev's demand for reform fits into a time in which sports institutions are being asked to show greater responsibility toward those who produce content, results and public interest. The Olympic Games still have a unique symbolic status, but at the same time they depend on the market for media rights, global sponsors, digital platforms and the commercial visibility of athletes. If athletes increasingly loudly demand a share in that value, Olympic institutions will have to explain more clearly how money is distributed and how it reaches those who compete. The IBA sees its answer in publicly announced rewards, while the IOC emphasises a model of solidarity and development investment that should protect Olympic sport as a whole. Since both models invoke the interests of athletes, the real difference will be measured by transparency, accessibility of funds and competitors' trust in the system.
Ahead of Los Angeles 2028, the debate will probably continue through Olympic rules, solidarity programmes, decisions by individual international federations and pressure from athletes who want greater control over their own commercial rights. Boxing will have a special place in this because it is entering a new Olympic cycle with a newly recognised administrator, but also with the IBA, which outside the official Olympic framework continues to claim that it protects boxers. According to the available information, the IOC for now remains committed to the position that solidarity and broad redistribution of revenue are the foundation of the Olympic system. At the same time, decisions such as the one by World Athletics show that the boundaries of an acceptable reward model are changing, and the issue of direct benefit for athletes is becoming one of the key topics before the next Summer Olympic Games.
Sources:
- Inside the Games – report on Umar Kremlev's statement and the IBA's demand for reform of the Olympic model (link)
- International Boxing Association – announcement on Kremlev's position toward rewards for boxers at LA28 and the payment model from Paris 2024 (link)
- International Olympic Committee – decision on the withdrawal of recognition from the International Boxing Association in June 2023 (link)
- International Olympic Committee – announcement on the provisional recognition of World Boxing as the international federation for boxing in the Olympic movement (link)
- International Olympic Committee – decision of the 144th IOC Session on including boxing in the programme of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games (link)
- World Boxing – official announcement on the approved qualification system for the boxing competition at LA28 (link)
- International Olympic Committee – 2024 Annual Report and data on revenue redistribution to the Olympic movement (link)
- International Olympic Committee – decision on increasing the Olympic Solidarity budget for the period from 2025 to 2028 (link)
- World Athletics – official announcement on the introduction of Olympic prize money for athletics winners in Paris 2024 (link)
- Yahoo Sports / Associated Press – reporting on Kirsty Coventry's clarification and the debate about paying Olympic athletes (link)