The tug-of-war between the International Boxing Federation (IBA) and its new rival, World Boxing, continues unabated. With just a few weeks to go before the first annual congress of the second of the two bodies, scheduled for late November in Germany, the IBA is once again on the offensive. But it has chosen an unexpected terrain: property rights. In a press release, it announced that it had lodged a formal complaint against World Boxing for illegal use of the IBA’s official trademarks. The body chaired by Russian Umar Kremlev asserts that the names “World Boxing” and “World Boxing Tour” belong to it and cannot therefore be used without authorization. It explains that it has asked its competitor to “immediately remove the designation ‘World Boxing’ from all materials, including official documents, the website and social media, and to refrain from any further use in public and in communications no later than October 26, 2023.” As a bonus, the IBA announces that it wants a “public apology” from World Boxing by the same deadline, and reserves the right to take “legal action to seek redress for the unauthorized use of its marks and the resulting damages.”
