Mystery man Ameen has ‘nothing to hide’ in row over Khan title defeat
THE MYSTERY man at the heart of the row over British fighter Amir Khan’s controversial defeat to Lamont Peterson last month, Mustafa Ameen, has broken his silence to declare his innocence of any wrongdoing.
Ameen has been accused of being an unauthorised presence at ringside for the WBA and IBF light-welterweight title bout, amid suggestions that judges’ scorecards were tampered with before Peterson won by split decision.
“I’ve got nothing to hide. I’m not running or ducking or anything,” said Ameen.
“I can discuss, without talking about the merits of what happened, I will just say that there’s a lot of misinformation. I’ve been called a lot of names over the past several days and that attacks my credibility, attacks my reputation that I worked very hard on in all my years in boxing.”
Khan’s American trainer Freddie Roach named Ameen as the mystery man on Saturday, alleging that he had “no credentials”, “is not a member of any boxing organisation” and there was “no reason for him to be at ringside”. Ameen, who is thought to have managed business interests of other US fighters, retorted: “Nobody seemed to know who I was, yet 24 hours later everybody in boxing, including the trainer of Amir Khan and everybody else, said ‘I know him’.”
He added: “I’m not a mystery man at all. It puzzles me that I’m this mysterious guy that dropped out of a sewer and they say I tried to fix a fight.”
Ameen is due to attend the IBF’s hearing later this month, which is expected to rule on Khan’s demand for a re-match. The WBA has already agreed that the fight should be re-run.