The platform will include virtual reality (VR) boxing, VR training, non-fungible tokens, "fantokens", VR fight arenas, and its own cryptocurrency.

The latter is set to serve as a means of payment across the software, including sports betting and subscriptions to online broadcasts of fights and boxing championships.

"Boxing is considered to be the 6th most important sport, with a huge audience of fans equal to 540 million people, and, considering this fact, this project becomes especially attractive for the whole sports community," read an IBA statement.

"There are no examples in the world yet when an official sports association became the developer of its own meta universe.

"To develop such a huge IT platform, David Suleimanov was involved, an IT specialist with a great track record in project development, marketing and growth."

The platform is said to include the latest technology in terms of live streaming from bouts and championships, ticket sales and betting.

It is hoped that the VR training system will create an industry for boxing coaches, allow them to train thousands of young athletes at a time instead of just several, and "transform and digitalise the training process."

The move is made as the IBA aims to appeal to a younger audience, with a digital presence seen as the way forward.

The organisation is battling to keep boxing's place in the Olympic Games intact after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) expressed serious concerns over governance.

The IOC warned that boxing, which has already been left off the initial programme for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, that it could also be removed from Paris 2024.

The body, which suspended IBA in 2019, is currently due to oversee the boxing tournament in the French capital having also organised the event at the re-arranged 2020 Olympic Games held in Tokyo in 2021.