LONDON, 28 September 2004 — Britain’s Olympic silver medalist Amir Khan will decide in the next few days whether to turn professional or to take up an offer of £70,000 ($126,400) a year to concentrate on the 2008 Beijing Games.
The 17-year-old has now received the formal offer from Britain’s Amateur Boxing Association (ABA), backed by Sport England, his agent Asif Vali said yesterday, adding that further talks with the ABA were needed.
“Then both myself, Amir’s family and Amir will sit down and discuss what to do next — hopefully by the end of the week,” Vali told the BBC.
“We received an offer in writing on Friday evening ... but we need to clarify a few things about the offer which requires meeting with the ABA.” No date for a meeting has been set but Vali said Khan had been given seven to 10 days to respond. Khan, the son of a Bolton scrap metal dealer, won rave reviews at last month’s Athens Olympics where he was only beaten in the final on points by Cuba’s defending champion Mario Kindelan.
Since then, boxing promoters have been tripping over themselves for the lightweight’s signature. Vali has already held meetings with professional promoters and said he would carry on discussions with them while negotiations with the ABA were in progress.
“We are still in talks with other people and we will continue to talk to other people,” he said. Last week former world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, an Olympic gold medalist at Seoul 1988, urged Khan to go for gold in Beijing rather than turn pro.
“I would say he should stay an amateur because there’s still so much to learn and so much to gain,” Lewis said. “Lose one fight (as a professional) and that’s it.
“I think that (winning gold) helped me. That’s the ticket to the pros. If you have certain goals and if you have solid family support, you know the right decision to make.”
