IBF World Featherweight champion Josh Warrington (30-0, 7 KOs) will fight again next year at the scene where he first won his world title.

The unbeaten 30-year-old, a massive fan of Leeds United Football Club will return to their Elland Road stadium next spring, two years after beating Lee Selby to win the IBF title on a memorable night for “The Leeds Warrior” and his large fan base.

“I want what he wants,” his promoter Frank Warren told Boxing Scene. “To go on and get involved in big fights. To that effect we’ve booked Elland Road for the end of April, beginning of May. I’m not sure of the exact date but we’ve booked Leeds and he’s going to have a fight there next year. He’s coming down next week and we’re going to sit down and have a chat, look at his options but obviously we’ve got to come up with a big fight to fill it up.”

Warrington made the third defence of his title on October 12th comfortably brushing aside Frenchman Sofiane Takoucht with the champion seemingly going out of his way to make a statement to show that he does carry power, despite just seven wins inside the distance.

As for who is next there are a number of options available. Newly crowned WBO champion Shakur Stevenson has made no secret of his desire to take on Warrington while a fight against WBA champion Can Xu would be a realistic possibility, as would a rematch against Carl Frampton to follow on from the pair’s 2018 fight of the year contender in Manchester. But Warren insists that Warrington holds all the aces and had this message for those that believe they are the bigger names and that Team Warrington has to go to them.

“The things is with Josh, all these people got to remember, out of every one of those featherweight world champions he’s the only one that can fill a stadium up. He’s the one holding the aces, not them. So we’re not going with our begging bowl letting people tell us what they want. It’s what he wants, he’s in the driving seat. It’s taken a while for me to get them to understand that. That’s where we’re at. As for where we’ll go we’ll have a talk with him but we’re determined to fill that stadium up and if he does go to the States, it’s obviously a possibility next year, it will have to be for big money. At the end of the day he’s the one that delivers. He’s got a great TV deal, he’s a ticket seller and it’s not like he’s a hard sell. He’s done brilliantly in the ring and we’ve done a brilliant job promoting a guy that wasn’t promoted properly before.”

And Warren’s enthusiasm for Warrington v Frampton 2 was clear to hear over the phone when ‘Scene spoke to him.

“I’d love that! Carl’s got a fight next month in America [against Tyler McCreary] so let him get his one out of the way and hopefully then he’ll challenge for a title. That would be great to do that (rematch). We could do that anyway. That is a massive fight. It was such a great fight the first time around and it’d be an even better fight with two titles on the line.”

Twitter @shaunrbrown