The World Boxing Council has stripped Australian Anthony Mundine of his ranking over remarks the super middleweight made this week about the September 11th attacks on the US.
Mundine, a Muslim, said on Monday the United States had brought the attacks upon itself. He later apologised for the comments through a statement on his website.
"The World Boxing Council read with stupefaction the statements made recently by Anthony Mundine justifying the terrorist attacks and the consequent deaths of so many innocent victims that occurred on September 11th in New York," WBC president Jose Sulaiman said in a statement.
"Mundine is currently rated (26) in the super middleweight division and, therefore, the WBC announces that he will be sanctioned by dropping him indefinitely from the WBC ratings, since such statements are unbelievable and intolerable and seriously hurt world society and boxing"
Mundine is scheduled to fight International Boxing Federation super middleweight champion Sven Ottke in Dortmund, Germany on December 1st.
IBF officials said that title fight would go ahead as scheduled but that they reserved the right to strip Mundine of the title at a later date should he win it, if he repeats his controversial statements.