Olympics gender row boxer Imane Khelif to turn professional

Khelif, who won women’s welterweight gold at Paris 2024 after being disqualified from the last World Championships upon being ruled to have failed a gender eligibility test, also revealed she would fight in Liverpool next year.
The 25-year-old disclosed her future plans during a press conference at the headquarters of the Algerian Olympic Committee on Sunday.

Announcing a documentary was in the works about her “success story”, Khelif said: “I will soon enter the world of professional boxing, I have many offers.

“Currently, I have not made up my mind about where I will enter professional boxing.

“But very soon I will take this step. We, as Algerians, would like to see our level in the field of professionalism.”

That may not come until after she competes at a rebel World Championships staged in Liverpool in September, in which she said she intended to participate.

The inaugural World Boxing Championships at the M&S Bank Arena has been established by World Boxing, the new international federation founded in a bid to ensure the sport remains in the Olympics.
The furore over the participation of Khelif at this summer’s Games was linked to the omission of boxing from the Games programme for LA 2028.

She and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting – who also won gold after being deemed to have failed a gender eligibility test at the last World Championship – have become caught up in a years-long war between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and International Boxing Association (IBA).

The IBA, which was behind the disqualification of both boxers, was stripped of the right to run the Olympic boxing competition following a corruption scandal that erupted during the 2016 Games.

That has seen the last two editions take place under IOC rules that controversially do not prevent women with differences of sexual development (DSD) competing in the female category of combat sports.

The IOC refused to ban Khelif and Lin from this summer’s Games, stressing that both had been assigned female at birth and questioning the credibility of the results of the IBA’s gender tests.

The impasse led to the ugly spectacle of a tearful Angela Carini abandoning her Olympic bout against Khelif inside 46 seconds, before proclaiming: “I had to preserve my life.”

The likes of JK Rowling, Elon Musk and Donald Trump all waded into the row, prompting Khelif to file a lawsuit to French authorities over comments made about her gender online.

Eddie Hearn open to promoting Khelif
Her decision to turn professional comes after top promoter Eddie Hearn revealed he would be open to signing her up.

He told IFL TV: “Yes, if the facts were laid out and it was in a position where there is no reason why this individual shouldn’t compete as a female.

“Yes, I would, commercially. One, she is a talented fighter. Two, commercially, I think she has up to two million Instagram followers, up from 30,000, so the answer is yes.
“But there are probably facts that we don’t know are true around the situation.

“But if a fighter was deemed, you know, female with no physical advantages, but again we hear about X/Y chromosomes, and I haven’t seen anything, I’ve just seen someone say: ‘We’ve done this test.’

“Do we get to see it ? Or are we just going to believe that narrative? It’s not ever one that I’d ever go, ‘I’m not getting involved in this conversation’. It’s a topical conversation.”