Royal Spanish Boxing Federation

Boxing came to Spain around 1875-1876, via Barcelona. It was not until 1910 that the sport became somewhat organized, under the leadership of Ramón Larruy and a group of enthusiasts. In 1913, El Club Pugilista in Barcelona attempted to organize the first Spanish championships, but they were abandoned due to major differences between the participants and protests from the public.

In 1920, the Spanish Federation of Personal Defense Sports was founded, encompassing fencing, Greco-Roman wrestling, and boxing, with Ramón Larruy as president. The growing number of self-proclaimed Spanish champions made a genuine governing body necessary.

On 30 August 1922 the Barcelona clubs met at the Barcelona Boxing Club premises at 58 Conde de Asalto. There, the Spanish Boxing Federation was founded, with Lorenzo Antonio Ramonet as president and Ramón Larruy as secretary. The first meeting followed on 8 September. When the flyweight title was contested in Madrid on 21 May 1923, the federation took on a truly national character.

Ramonet deliberately developed amateur boxing: no one was allowed to become a professional boxer without first boxing as an amateur. At the end of May 1924, the first Spanish amateur championships took place in Barcelona, and that same year Spain made its Olympic debut at the Paris Games and joined the international amateur boxing federation, the forerunner of AIBA. On 30 October 1925, Antonio Ruiz became the first Spanish European champion in Madrid, and in June 1935 Baltasar Sangchili defeated Panamá Al Brown in Valencia and became the first Spanish world champion.

The Spanish Civil War brought boxing to a standstill. After reconstruction, the first major amateur milestone came in 1947, when Luis Martínez Zapata became European flyweight champion in Dublin. In 1948, Spain returned to the Olympic Games in London. From 1968 onward, a second golden period followed, with sporting successes continuing into the early 1980s.

The FEB organizes the Spanish championships in the Elite, Youth and Junior categories, as well as tournaments such as the National Club Open, Liga4Boxing, the Copa Iberdrola / Presidente, the international Boxam-tournament and the Dacal Memorial.

In addition to competitive sports, the federation runs school boxing programs with its own grades and summer camps, inclusive and adapted boxing programs with its own Spanish committee, and the official training programs and regulations for trainers, referees and judges. Professional boxing falls under its own C.B.P.E. committee.

The federation issues amateur and professional licenses, selects the national team and publishes competition documents, protocols and a public competition calendar.

The RFEB is a full member of World Boxing, the international boxing federation, and within it belongs to the Europe region. The federation is also a full member of European Boxing, the continental federation of World Boxing that was founded in 2023 and operates from the Czech Republic. Spain joined the international amateur boxing federation of the time, the predecessor to AIBA, as early as 1924.

The federation oversees fifteen regional federations: Andalusia, Aragon, Asturias, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Cantabria, Castile and León, Catalonia, Extremadura, Galicia, Madrid, Murcia, La Rioja, the Valencian Community and the Basque Country.

In addition, the federation operates with four of its own delegations, in Navarre, Castile-La Mancha, Melilla and Ceuta. Clubs join through their regional federation and can be affiliated with the federation.

Administratively, the RFEB operates with a General Assembly, a Comisión Delegada, a Board of Directors and standing committees.

With its establishment in 1922, Spain gained for the first time an organization capable of recognizing champions and titles. Only from that moment onward can one properly speak of Spanish championships, putting an end to the proliferation of self-proclaimed titleholders.

The decision to make amateur boxing a mandatory foundation laid the groundwork for Spain's Olympic participation from Paris 1924 onward and for generations of European and world champions, from Antonio Ruiz and Baltasar Sangchili to later figures such as Luis Romero, Fred Galiana, and Pedro Carrasco.

Today, the FEB is the point of contact for everyone who boxes competitively in Spain, from school boxing and adaptive boxing to the national team and the professional circuit.