Boxing New Zealand President Steve Hartley revealed that a tournament is scheduled to be held in The Netherlands later this year for boxers to take part in instead of IBA’s flagship event, due to be staged in Uzbekistan in May.

New Zealand is a member of the Common Cause Alliance, led by Dutch official Boris van der Vorst which seeks to prioritise the preservation of boxing’s place at the Olympics from Los Angeles 2028.

Hartley said that discussions had taken place between the Common Cause Alliance and the IOC which, he claimed, was poised to make an "emphatic statement".

Speaking at a media conference before the Women’s World Championships in Indian capital New Delhi, Kremlev dismissed the plans for an alternative event to its Men’s World Championships.

"We do not need to compare the mosquito with the elephant," said the Russian official.

"We should not discuss it."

Hartley is one of five officials subject to disciplinary proceedings by the Boxing Independent Integrity Unit in relation to the boycott of the Women’s World Championships.

Several national governing bodies including those from the United States, Britain and Ukraine, have withdrawn from the event in protest at the IBA’s decision to allow Russian and Belarusian boxers to compete under their own flag in contrary to IOC recommendations.

New Zealand has allowed a team to attend the Women’s World Championships, scheduled to be held from March 16 to 26, even though its preference was for athletes not to participate.

The IBA has been suspended by the IOC since 2019 because of continuing concerns related to governance, financial transparency and sustainability, and the integrity of its refereeing and judging processes.

It was not involved in the running of the boxing tournament at Tokyo 2020 and has been stripped of the rights for Paris 2024 as well, while boxing remains off the initial programme for Los Angeles 2028.

Last month, the IBA said that the IOC’s decision to exclude the Women’s and Men’s World Championships from the Olympic qualification system was "not acceptable", as it unveiled its own criteria for the Games.

The IOC then hit back by reiterating that the IBA will not be involved in organising the Paris 2024 boxing qualifications and tournaments.

It was announced by the IBA on Sunday (March 12) that the IOC would be sending a team of observers to the Women’s World Championships.

The IOC monitoring team is set to be led by PricewaterhouseCoopers which will work in parallel with the IBA and its McLaren Independent Investigation Team headed by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren responsible for background checking competitions.

Kremlev insisted that the IBA had "started a new page" since Wu Ching-kuo’s controversial reign as head of the organisation from 2006 to 2017 as he urged the IOC to work with his governing body.

"We are not pretending to be the IOC and we are not doing the qualification system for the Olympic Games for now," said Kremlev.

"We just offered the idea that IBA would be the managing association for the qualification system for future Championships.

"The IBA is one of the strongest associations.

"In the past, we had some accidents connected with the previous President Wu Ching-kuo.

"That’s why we are working with the best experts in the sports sphere in Professor McLaren.

"We should be sure that all the qualification tournaments shall be managed by IBA.

"Firstly, we need to cooperate with each other.

"We are pretty sure that IOC representatives would like to avoid any conflict with us and I am sure that in the future the cooperation will be on a high level as well."

insidethegames has contacted the IOC for comment.