Wednesday, 18 January 2012

Amir Khan's IBA Hearing Cancelled


Wednesday's hearing into Amir Khan's controversial December defeat by Lamont Peterson has been cancelled.

The International Boxing Federation announced that Khan's promoters, Golden Boy Promotions, withdrew its appeal without giving a reason.

An IBF statement said: "[We] received notice that Golden Boy Promotions withdrew their appeal of the Khan-Peterson bout.

"The hearing that was scheduled for tomorrow has been cancelled."

It continued: "We have not received any further information on this decision by Golden Boy Promotions."

In losing to Peterson, Khan relinquished both his IBF and WBA belts. But the WBA last week ordered that there should be a rematch between Peterson and Khan and that it should take place within 180 days.

Khan flew to the United States on Tuesday for the scheduled hearing in Newark, New Jersey, and took to social network site Twitter to announce his arrival.

"Landed safe and sound to New York. 20 minutes through customs, wow never been so quick", he wrote after arriving with his father Shah and his business manager Asif Vali.

Khan's camp were upset that referee Joe Cooper deducted the British fighter two points for pushing during the fight, alleging that the scorecards were interfered with.

They later submitted a formal appeal to the WBA and IBF.

The presence of a mystery man at ringside, later identified as Mustafa Ameen, who conducts "outreach work" for the IBF, added to the controversy.

Ameen, who was due to attend the hearing, stated that he planned to defend his actions.

The IBF previously said that scoring supervisor Michael Welsh, the man to whom Ameen was talking while the fight was in progress, would not be present to give evidence to the three-man panel.