FORMER world boxing champion Ricky Burns is being sued for £2 million by a leading promoter in an alleged "tapping up" scandal.
Burns is accused of costing Frank Warren about £2m in lost revenue when he switched promoters last year. Mr Warren wants the money he says he lost when the ex-WBO lightweight champ signed with rival Eddie Hearn.
The boxer, 31, of Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, claims he pulled out of an agreement with Mr Warren's company due to unpaid fight purses, but Mr Warren alleges skullduggery. "He got tapped up, that's the bottom line. Behind the scenes he got tapped up by another promoter," Mr Warren told the High Court in London. "That's what this is all about and it is very disappointing."
Burns started his career in 2001 and, under Mr Warren's wing, became WBO super featherweight champion in 2010. He later moved up to lightweight and took the world title in that division.
However, the relationship turned sour last year after a successful title defence in a fight in Glasgow promoted by Eddie Hearn's Matchroom Sport Limited.
Burns subsequently signed an exclusive promotional deal with Mr Hearn's company and recruited Alex Morrison as his sole manager.
In his High Court claim, Mr Warren says the moves were in breach of a series of binding agreements he had signed with the boxer. A promotional agreement gave his company, W. Promotions Ltd (WPL), exclusive rights to promote Burns's next three fights, he said.
And a joint management agreement made him co-manager with Mr Morrison, entitling him to a cut of the fighter's payments from 2010 to last year.
He says he is due about £90,000 in unpaid manager's commission and his company £1.8m in lost income from promoting fights that did not go ahead.
Mr Burns disputes Mr Warren provided anything more than promotion after 2010 and says the agreement with WPL was cancelled by non-payment of full fight fees.
However, Mr Warren's barrister, Ian Mill QC, told Mr Justice Knowles that, about the time the agreements were torn up, Mr Burns was already in talks with Mr Hearn.
"Documents disclosed by Mr Burns suggest that at the relevant time he was engaged in "conversations" with Eddie Hearn at Matchroom, which led to a 'five-fight deal' with that company," he said.
The boxer's barrister, Mark Simpson, QC, said the joint management agreement was not valid or enforceable and so Mr Burns could not be held to it. Even if he was entitled to some cut, Mr Warren had waived his right by not taking it at the time, he said.
He suggested Mr Warren's claim was "vengeful" because he believed a fighter he had worked with for years had been tapped up by Matchroom. But Mr Warren replied: "I didn't say Matchroom, you said Matchroom."
Mr Warren said he had done what he could to help Mr Burns's career, often to his detriment as a promoter, such as pushing for a fight to be held in Scotland, when overseas would have paid better.
Describing the boxer as having a "massive heart", Mr Warren added: "Up until this litigation I quite liked him, now I am very disappointed. Very, very disappointed."
The hearing, which is expected to last several days, continues.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article