Brother of Amir Khan chooses to fight for Pakistan
Sports Friday, May 14th, 2010World champion Amir Khan’s brother Haroon will fight for Pakistan at the Commonwealth Games after being overlooked by the English authorities.
The brothers’ father told BBC Sport the 19-year-old was not turning his back on England but he had no alternative.
“There’s no future for him representing England as they’ve got their podium squad and development squad, and he’s not even on that,” said Shah Khan.
“It’s unfortunate but he’s lucky he’s got another route, which is Pakistan.”
Speaking ahead of his older son Amir’s fight with Paulie Malignaggi in New York on Saturday, Khan Sr said the Pakistan authorities had taken a look at his younger son and were happy to have him as part of their programme for October’s Commonwealth Games in Dehli.
“He went there for trials and their Cuban coach was there,” he said.
“He did some sparring with their internationals, and after they saw him he had a meeting and they said yes, we want to take him in.”
Khan Sr feels Haroon is not being given a proper chance in England and he could not understand why.
“If England don’t give him a chance what does he do?” he said. “I don’t know why the Amateur Boxing Association of England (ABAE) aren’t having a look at him, is it because Amir has achieved so much and they don’t want two brothers to do the same? I’ve no idea.
“I’m very bitter, I’m disappointed more than anything, we bent backwards to do whatever we could for the ABA but they’ve turned their back on Haroon.”
Bantamweight Haroon told the Times that he had always dreamt of representing Great Britain, but he had “never had a look-in” with regards to being part of the senior squad.
He also said he hoped to turn professional after October, so there was no prospect of representing Pakistan at the London 2012 Olympics, saying “it wouldn’t feel right”.
Haroon competed in this year’s ABAE Championships but was eliminated before the quarter-final stage.
In the independent Boxing News rankings for all fighters in his class across the Home Nations, he was rated as 10th best.
The two English boxers who are in the national squad training full-time at Sheffield were ranked second and fifth.
A spokesperson for GB Boxing, which deals with Olympic boxing, told BBC Sport: “Haroon is on our radar and if he boxes well in competition and shows significant progress then he could make it into the Podium squad and become a candidate for the 2012 Olympic team.”
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on May 14 2010. Filed under