By Ronnie Nathanielsz

“Fighter of the Decade” Manny Pacquiao’s longtime adviser Michael Koncz has confirmed an earlier story aired by GMA TV News in Manila that Pacquiao will leave for London on January 22 for a dinner with Prince Harry.

Prince Harry is the younger son of Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales  and the late Princess Diana and is fourth in the line of succession to the British throne.

The eight division world champion indicated he did not know what they would talk about over dinner even as he indicated that Prince Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II may possibly join them.

In an exchange of text messages with BoxingScene.com/Manila Standard/Viva Sports shortly after midnight on Thursday, Koncz confirmed the report based on an exclusive GMA 7 interview with Pacquiao and disclosed that he would accompany Pacquiao - but did not know where the meeting would take place.

Koncz told us - “I am not sure what we will talk about but I certainly will question them about holding a boxing event there and what concessions we can get.”

This strengthened indications that a possible fight between Pacquiao and Britain’s WBC Silver and WBA International welterweight champion Amir Khan was being considered should the ongoing, back and forth negotiations with the handlers of Floyd Mayweather Jr. fail to make headway on a Pacquiao-Mayweather megabuck fight.

Khan pushed for a showdown with Pacquiao and tweeted “who wants to see Khan vs Pacquiao because I know Mayweather is running.”

Amir Khan revealed prior to his title defense against Devon Alexander that Koncz had called him to discuss a possible fight against Pacquiao although Koncz claimed he only called Khan to wish him the best of luck.

But Koncz did tell the Standard on Monday that while they have not set a deadline for the Mayweather talks, they had a backup plan which added to the speculation that it involves a fight  with Amir Khan.

The interesting dimension to a Pacquiao-Khan fight is that they trained together under Freddie Roach at the Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles and also in the Philippine summer capital of Baguio City which included some sparring before Khan parted ways with Roach and is now trained by Virgil Hunter. 

Pacquiao and Khan are friends and although the British champion was peeved by Freddie Roach’s comments that Pacquiao had knocked him down in sparring which Khan flatly denied, a Pacquiao-Khan fight held in Britain would certainly be a big draw because Manny, like Khan, is also very popular in Britain after his devastating 2nd round knockout of Ricky “The Hitman” Hatton to win the IBO light welterweight title on May 2, 2009 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.
 
The 28 year old Khan has looked impressive in his last two fights in which he outboxed Luis Collazo last May 3 to score a unanimous twelve round decision in which Khan won the vacant WBC Silver title and the WBA Intercontinental welterweight title then put on dominating performance in a twelve round unanimous decision over American Devon Alexander last December 13 in defending his WBC crown.

Khan has said in the past that a fight with Pacquiao would be exciting.
 
The one common factor between Prince Harry and Pacquiao is that they both have different military backgrounds. Prince Harry chose a military career and underwent officer training at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst and was commissioned as a second lieutenant and had two separate stints in Afghanistan.

Although he hasn’t seen action in the field  boxing superstar and congressman from Sarangani Province Manny Pacquuao was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Philippine Army Reserves last July.