17 candidates from 16 countries are due to contest elections for office at World Boxing’s third annual Congress in Rome on 23 November 2025.
The Congress will include elections for the office of President, one position as Vice-President and several other places on the World Boxing Executive Board. The Presidential election will not feature the current holder, Boris van der Vorst, who announced in September 2025 that he is not standing for a second term.
The two candidates that have put their names forward for the Presidency are Gennadiy Golovkin from Kazakhstan and Mariolis Charilaos from Greece.
A former boxer, Gennadiy Golovkin, won a silver medal at the Athens Olympics in 2004 and the middleweight world title twice in a professional career made-up of 42 wins, two losses and a draw. He is the President of Kazakhstan’s National Olympic Committee and has served as the Chair of World Boxing’s Olympic Commission since September 2024.
Mariolis Charilaos served as President of the Hellenic Boxing Federation from 2021 to
2025 where he implemented governance reforms with a strong focus on transparency, strengthened international partnerships, and the establishment of athlete-centred programmes.
In line with the processes set-out in World Boxing’s Statutes, Rules for Electoral Voting and Rules for Candidates of Elections (HERE), all of the candidates will need to be approved by an independent Vetting Panel to make it on to the ballot paper at Congress. The Vetting Panel is made-up of three independent, external experts and supported by the leading independent provider of sport-specific arbitration and mediation services, Sport Resolutions.
A list of candidates and details of their relevant experience and expertise can be viewed HERE.
The Congress will be chaired by World Boxing Vice President, Dinah Glykidis and the elections overseen by an experienced, independent, third-party organisation. Scrutineers will be onsite to validate the veracity of the election processes and ensure candidates are treated in a fair and equitable manner.
World Boxing was launched in April 2023 with a mission to ensure that boxing remains at the heart of the Olympic movement. It held its first formal meeting with the IOC in May 2024 and on 25 February 2025, it was granted provisional recognition by the IOC as the International Federation (IF) within the Olympic Movement governing the sport of boxing at world level.