Frank Warren Furious: British Board Went Easy on Hatton!

By Mark Vester

Promoter Frank Warren is furious with the British Boxing Board of Control for allowing Ricky Hatton to keep his promoter’s license. Warren made a recent radio appearance on Talk Sport and gave his opinion on Hatton's Thursday hearing with the BBBoC. The BBBoC scheduled a hearing to punish Hatton for the widespread video which showed the Manchester star snorting several lines of cocaine. The BBBoC stripped Hatton of his boxing license, and his manager's license, but allowed him to keep his license as a promoter. They also fined him £20,000.

Warren feels the BBBoC's decision sends a bad message to everyone involved in the British boxing scene.

“It’s alright for me to take cocaine and promote fights or for any promoter to do that, there’s no problem, you keep your licence,” Warren told Talk Sport hosts Hawksbee and Jacobs. “He needs to get himself well and the facts are that he’s not running his company, they’re talking about other people running the company who are certainly not licensed under Hatton Promotions."

“He should be focusing on dealing with his drink problem and his drug problem but the drink problems, as I’ve said before, have been there for a number of years. The Board of Control chose to do nothing about it, they continue to licence him in the last couple of years and it was well documented in newspapers that he was drinking a lot. It’s a cop out.

“He didn’t even attend the hearing – that is ridiculous. How can you have a hearing and the guy who is accused doesn’t even attend? What they should have done is suspend him until he finished with his rehab and then called him and dealt with it properly. It’s a bad message that is sent out.”