Quigg in £1.5m bid to fight Frampton

CARL FRAMPTON has been offered a huge £1.5million payday to face Scott Quigg in one of the biggest allBritish fights in recent memory. Talks between the two super-bantamweight world champions have stalled, but Quigg’s promoter Eddie Hearn attempted yesterday to jolt Frampton’s camp into a July 18 fight in Manchester by offering the Northern Irishman (above) the biggest cheque of his career to date. The proposal was made live on TV with Frampton’s team, led out if he actually does — there is £1.5m if he wants it. He has one and a half million reasons to fight me.’ Hearn added: ‘If it doesn’t do the payper-view buys that we anticipate, Scott might get a third of that (£500,000 to Frampton’s £1.5m). We take the risk.’ But a Cyclone Promotions statement read: ‘If Matchroom Sport are interested in joining Cyclone Promotions in staging this domestic superfight, we recommend Matchroom accept the invitation for a follow-up meeting.’ FORMER Olympic 110 metres hurdles champion Liu Xiang, one of China’s most celebrated sportsmen, has announced his retirement. The 31-year-old was the first Chinese man to win an Olympic athletics gold at Athens in 2004 and ran a then-world record 12.88 seconds in 2006. But he has been plagued by Achilles problems since the 2008 Beijing Olympics. ALJAZ BEDENE got off to a flier in his first tournament as a British tennis player with victory over Maximo Gonzalez. The Slovenian-born world No 99, who switched countries last month, beat the Argentinian 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 in the first round of the Casablanca Open. The 25-year-old represented Britain for the first time at the weekend in qualifying for the competition.