Carl Frampton’s challenge for Jamel Herring’s WBO super featherweight title will go ahead in Belfast on June 13.

Herring had long ago agreed to go to Frampton’s home city for the fight, but the Northern Irishman first had to recover from operations on both his hands.

The fight will be promoted by Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions in association with Top Rank. It is expected to be formally announced this week.

The former two-weight world champion last boxed in Belfast in 2018, when he stopped Luke Jackson at Windsor Park, the national football stadium, and at the time believed that it might be the last time he boxed in his homeland.

It was in Belfast that Frampton, 33, first became a world champion, claiming the IBF super-bantamweight title from Kiko Martinez in a purpose-built outdoor arena in the Titanic Quarter of the city in 2014. He added the WBA belt when he beat Scott Quigg in Manchester in 2016 before moving up to featherweight to claim the WBA title from Leo Santa Cruz in New York.

He lost the rematch to Santa Cruz in Las Vegas and lost to Josh Warrington in a challenge for the IBF featherweight title in 2018.

Last year, he only boxed once, beating Tyler McCreary in Las Vegas in November. A fight in August was scrapped due to a freak injury when a hotel ornament fell on his hand.

Herring, 34, will be making the second defence of the title he won from Masayuki Ito last May. It will be the first time as a professional, although he did box in the UK at the London Olympics in 2012.

Top Rank boss Bob Arum said he would be coming over to Belfast for the fight.

“I’m really looking forward to that fight,” Arum said. “Frank is going to announce it shortly and I am looking forward to being in Belfast on June 13 and then getting on a plane and coming to London where my guy [Kubrat] Pulev is going to put a whipping on Anthony Joshua.”