A vote for boxing to be welcomed back to the Olympic Games in time for Los Angeles 2028 will take place later this week after the Executive Board (EB) proposed its inclusion to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

World Boxing, which is set to be the recognised body for the sport at the Games, has backed the EB's proposal.

The vote will take place this week at the 144th IOC Session in Costa Navarino, Greece, which will be held from March 19 to March 21.

IOC president Thomas Bach said: "After the provisional recognition of World Boxing in February we were in a position to take this decision," Bach said on Monday.

"This recommendation has to go to the session, but I am very confident they will approve it so that all the boxers of the world then have certainty they can participate in the Olympic Games in LA."

President of World Boxing Boris van der Vorst said: “This is a very significant and important decision for Olympic boxing and takes the sport one step closer to being restored to the Olympic programme.

"I have no doubt it will be very positively received by everyone connected with boxing, at every level throughout the world, who understands the critical importance to the future of the sport of boxing continuing to remain a part of the Olympic Movement.

“On behalf of everyone at World Boxing I would like to thank the EB of the IOC for the trust they have placed in our organisation and we hope for a positive outcome when the IOC Session meets this week.

“World Boxing understands that being part of the Olympic Games is a privilege and not a right and I assure the IOC that if boxing is restored to the programme for LA28, that World Boxing is completely committed to being a trustworthy and reliable partner that will adhere to and uphold the values of the Olympic Charter.”

There was, at first, a chance that there would be no boxing at the Olympics for the first time in the competition's history following the IOC's decision to strip the International Boxing Association (IBA) of its recognition in June 2023, having been suspended before that since 2019.

The Tokyo 2020 Games and Paris 2024 were supervised under a special taskforce as a result. But the sport's future from 2028 onwards was thrown into serious doubt after not being included in the programme for Los Angeles.

Now World Boxing, whose mission statement drew out its plans to preserve boxing at the Olympics, is in the frame, and it looks likely that boxing will be back in time for LA in three years.

Earlier this month, the IOC said of World Boxing: “The assessment concluded that World Boxing has continued to make progress regarding the identified areas of consideration in order to be recommended for IOC Provisional Recognition as the International Federation within the Olympic Movement governing the sport of boxing at world level.”

World Boxing is currently composed of 84 national federations from five continents and its Chair of the Olympic Commission is former middleweight world champion Gennady Golovkin.