By Rick Reeno
MGM Grand, Las Vegas - Golden Boy Promotions President Oscar De La Hoya was very calm as he discussed the ongoing legal battle with his former CEO, Richard Schaefer. In early June, Schaefer parted ways with Golden Boy after working with the company since their formation.
At the end of June, Golden Boy filed a reported $50 million dollar arbitration claim against Schaefer. To date, the actual claims against Schaefer have not been specified.
While Schaefer contends that he's a free agent, De La Hoya is very firm on his position that Schaefer is bound to a no-compete clause - which De La Hoya says will expire in March of 2018.
"He has a contract until 2018, which obvious stipulates that he cannot compete or be involved in boxing. Its a strong, solid contract that I'm standing by 100%," De La Hoya said.
De La Hoya would not specify the details, but he states the case is not progressing in the direction of a speedy resolution. The legal tussle, says De La Hoya, is likely to play out for a while.
"I think we took a step back recently [in the progress of the case]. We do have some pending issues with Richard because he does have a contract with Golden Boy. The fact that he resigned is a big issue and its not going to be taken care of overnight. We're going to continue to do our jobs and we're going to continue to be involved in the big events in events," De La Hoya said. "We were making progress.....and it's going to be a fight."
A reporter asked De La Hoya if 'Schaefer was not working in the best interest' of Golden Boy - and De La Hoya replied - "You can make an argument he wasn't [working in the best interest of Golden Boy]."
While neither side is willing to comment, industry experts speculate that Schaefer's high-volume use of fighters managed by Al Haymon was an issue for De La Hoya. A good bulk of the fighters on the Golden Boy roster are under contract with Haymon, but they are not contractually tied to Golden Boy. In other words, Golden Boy could suffer a serious blow if Haymon simply packed up the fighters who don't have Golden Boy contracts and moved them to another promoter.