It has been revealed that 14 members of the Board backed the call from IBA's Russian President Umar Kremlev to overturn the suspension imposed in March, shortly after Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.

Three members of the Board of Directors abstained, although it is not known who they were.

The IBA vice-president Volodymyr Prodyvus has compared the 14-1 margin to the process used by Russia to annex four Ukrainian occupied regions in a referendum widely condemned as a sham.

"Saw the results of the vote to lift sanctions against athletes of Russia and Belarus," Prodyvus wrote on his personal Facebook page.

"It turns out that 14 members of the Board of Directors in IBA supported this decision.

"I do not believe this number.

"Because the will was done online and was completely confidential, which is unacceptable under the current circumstances.

"Such format can calmly be equated to the referendums in temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

"Once again. I emphasise - the decision to lift sanctions should only be made publicly and openly.

"Let the whole world know the names of those who support killer countries."

The IBA Board of Directors is composed of the five Presidents of the Continental Federations in Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania, along with 10 members voted for at an Election Congress meeting held every four years.

The current Board of Directors was voted on at the controversial Extraordinary IBA Congress held in May this year.

Among those elected was Elise Seignolle and Kirsty Harris, from the US and Australia, two countries that are leading members of the "Common Cause Alliance", a group of nations who are arch critics of Kremlev and claim to be committed to keeping boxing in the Olympic Games.

Seignolle is currently senior finance director for the Campari Group and athlete trustee of the USA Boxing Foundation.

In her CV on the IBA website, she claimed that her "passion for the sport of Olympic style boxing make me distinctly equipped to serve on the IBA Board".

Harris won a bronze medal in the bantamweight division at the Women's World Boxing Championships in New Delhi and is hoping to qualify for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

Harris claims she "possesses highly developed problem-solving skills and can arrive at logical conclusions".

Other members of the IBA Board of Directors include representatives from Cameroon, Puerto Rico, Thailand, Greece, French Polynesia, Morocco, Qatar, Spain, Eswatini, Sri Lanka, Hungary and China.

The decision to overturn the suspension on Russia and Belarus has plunged the IBA into even more controversy after the failure last month at an Extraordinary Congress in Yerevan to allow Dutch official Boris van der Vorst to stand against Kremlev for IBA President.

It followed a decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport that ruled van der Vorst should not have been declared ineligible to stand on the eve of the last Extraordinary Congress in Istanbul.

But delegates attending the Congress in Armenia's capital voted overwhelmingly by 106 votes to 36 not to re-stage an election.

The IBA was not allowed to organise the boxing tournament at the re-arranged Olympic Games in Tokyo last year, has been barred again from being involved at Paris 2024 and currently the sport is not on the programme for Los Angeles 2028.

Prodyvus, meanwhile, finds himself at the centre of a dispute over whether or not he is the legitimate head of the Ukrainian Boxing Federation, the reason for the country’s national governing body being suspended.

But he has vowed to continue to oppose the decision to allow Russian and Belarus boxers to compete in international competitions.

"As vice-president of the IBA I will continue to support Ukraine and Ukrainian boxers," he wrote on Facebook.

"I will do my best to keep my initiative to exclude athletes from the aggressor countries unchanged."

insidethegames has asked IBA for a comment.