AMIR SPLITS FAMILY FROM BOXING
Khan changes his team for the sake of his career and marriage
AMIR KHAN is keeping boxing and family separate for the sake of his career and his marriage.
He has dropped his dad as part of an overhaul of his management team following a savage rift which threatened to tear his family apart.
His father Shah has been with him throughout his amateur and professional career, famously wearing a Union Jack waistcoat at the 2004 Athens Olympics, and was his manager.
He criticised Amir’s wife Faryal in the bitter and very public row between her and his family and the former world champ felt he needed to take a step back. “My dad is not going to be negotiating fights,” he said. “I love my family to bits, but my business is boxing and I’ll have a different team to do that.
“My dad, my mum, I respect them. I want a family relationship with them rather than a business relationship. They will be at my next fight, hopefully, and I will invite them.
“When you mix the two it can get a bit difficult. That’s why I want to keep them separate.”
Khan’s uncle Tahir Khan and pal Saj Mohamed, who was best man at his wedding, have also gone and he admits the feuding hurt him deeply.
The former unified lightwelterweight champ – who is back training with Virgil Hunter in San Francisco following surgery on his right hand – says that boxing kept him sane. “Yeah, everything is stabilised back home,” said Khan (below with Shah), who was in Las Vegas at the weekend to watch Carl Frampton’s defeat against Leo Santa Cruz.
“Being out gave me time to sort out stuff which was going on, especially at home, and be a man, and do things my way.
“It’s harder in the UK, but here everything is more chilled. Boxing gets me away from everything, so I’m glad I’ve got it. If I didn’t have boxing, I’d go mad with all the stuff that’s gone on.”
Khan wants a comeback fight in the UK in May, before a tilt at the WBC welterweight title or IBF champ and rival Kell Brook at the end of the year. But he insisted that he is not finished, despite being sparked out by Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez in his last fight in May. “I never thought about retiring and I don’t want to go out on a loss like that,” said the Bolton fighter, who last held a world crown in July 2012. “Because I won a world title at a young age, people think I’m finished, that I’m past it now. I’m only 30 and many fighters only win their first world title at 30. “I’m much smarter and more mature now. I’m at my peak and I believe that I can win a world title this year.”