APB is designed to help the sport of amateur boxing move towards professionalism and will feature both individual and team bouts at national, continental and world levels.

The competition will officially get underway in early 2013 and it follows the launch of the AIBA owned World Series of Boxing (WSB) competition, which was inaugurated last year and sees boxers compete without head guards and vests, while being scored by three judges.

AIBA President CK Wu unveiled the new APB logo here shortly after the conclusion of the 2012 Olympic boxing test event and said that it marks an exciting time for the world governing body for the sport.

"After the launch of APB was officially announced in Astana on August 1, 2011, this is another historic moment in the development of the programme," said Wu, who is also a long-time International Olympic Committee (IOC) member.

"With the support of our National Federations, AIBA has to become the ultimate responsible body for the boxers' entire careers, from grassroots to amateur and all the way through to the professional ranks.

"APB is the final piece of the jigsaw for AIBA's vision in achieving this and it will give boxers another option so that they don't feel that they have to turn professional straight after the conclusion of the Olympics.

"I look forward to shortly being able to reveal the first boxers signed up to APB."

Like the WSB, the new APB will allow competitors to retain their Olympic eligibility despite boxing professionally, as well as enabling professional boxers to have their Olympic eligibility restored ahead of Rio 2016.


AIBA chief executive Ho Kim (pictured) will serve as the APB chief executive, while a search has been launched for a chief operating officer to work under him.

AIBA have already established an interim office for APB at the same location as the AIBA Headquarters in Lausanne and they are now in a process of developing the APB initiative in partnership with a major consulting company.

As a result, the APB chief operating officer will be required to start with immediate effect.

The APB, which is the brainchild of Wu, who is aiming to roll back decades of tradition that have seen amateur boxers turn professional after competing successfully at the Olympics.

Among those who have become professionals after winning Olympic gold is the most famous boxer of all time, Muhammad Ali – who won the light heavyweight gold medal for America at Rome in 1960 under the name of Cassius Clay.

Other notable names include American George Foreman, who won the heavyweight gold medal at Mexico City in 1968, and his compatriot Sugar Ray Leonard, winner of the light welterweight title at Montreal in 1976.

Lennox Lewis, fighting for Canada, won the super heavyweight gold medal at Seoul in 1988 before switching allegiance to Britain and becoming the country's greatest ever heavyweight.

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