Allegedly wins latest court battle against Burns

[palooka]

Hang on a minute Expe - it is NOT allowed. If the contract is against Board rules how can it be enforced ?
The costs were always going to be huge but to suggest the risks were not outlined to Ricky by his advisers and representatives I think is wrong.

If the risks were explained to Ricky and to Matchroom, surely there would have been a contingency plan in place?

[handsofstone]

Tbf I like ricky, have met him and spoke to him, nice guy and down to earth, but are
People still blaming FW lol, ricky has been ill advised by whoever and has U fortunately been proven to be in breach of contract, if you were unfairly dismissed at work you would protect your buisness intrests, no friends in buisness and FW done what anyone would do, let's see what matchroom
Do now, he says he sees fighters as friends etc, this has materialised through rickys head being turned, grass is not always greener on other side

Ive not got a problem with FW looking after his interests everyone would do the same,the reason i cant stand him is his common habit of failing to pay fighters and his business's constantly going under

[tony1234]

Hope Matchroom are covering Burn's legal fees or he will be pot less at this rate

[expe]

Hang on a minute Expe - it is NOT allowed. If the contract is against Board rules how can it be enforced ?
The costs were always going to be huge but to suggest the risks were not outlined to Ricky by his advisers and representatives I think is wrong.

It was enforced through the courts, not the board. I'm not sure exactly how they did it, I think Morrison was his registered manager with the board, then there was another contract signed after naming Warren as co-manager, I'd have to look at the judgement from the first court case to be sure.

[SteveDow]

The ability to sue a solicitor successfully will involve proving that the solicitor in question was negligent. This will be a difficult task given that most solicitor advice is very heavily caveated but people do successfully sue firms on a regular basis so depending on the facts of the case and how negligent the advice was it would be a possibility. Problem of course is that he could then end up racking up even more legal costs and so the guy probably won't be able to afford to take the risk of further action even if he does have a case.

[JamieM]

For FW to be disciplined for non payment of fighters you need foghters to stand up and go against him, Ricky is the only one to go to board regarding non payment, FW admits at start of allegedly he was late on payments as quite frankly there was nothing there to pay them, running at loss but all were paid in time, until there is concrete evidence and fighters prosecuting then I am going as ricky was an extreme case with a broken contract!

[thatllbeme]

don't you think ricky has lost enough money already than to go trying to sue the people who have advised him?

[johnswan1]

Moral of the story, don't sign a contract if you're not willing to see it out.

[jameswilson]

One thing I can't get my head round with Ricky Burns. The guy earned £160k for fighting Mitchell. We could call that about $250k. That's more than both Lee and Korabov earned on Saturday. To me Burns was getting magnificent money relative to his ability and the calibre of opponent. Why would anyone in the right mind turn their back on this ? He is/was never going to earn more than this with Matchroom.

Lee and Korobov were challengers for a vacant title. If one of them was a champ and one the challenger then the purses would likely be heavily in favour of the champ. There is almost always a disparity in the purse between the challenger and the champion, the exception obviously being when you have a challenger who is a ridiculously big draw (for example when Tyson fought Bruno for the title second time around.) Not saying that Mitchell was on significantly less than Burns, just that the examples you gave weren't really on equal terms. Keith Thurman earned $500k+ defending an interim title on the undercard and Abner Mares got $250k+ when he wasn't even in a title fight on the same undercard at the weekend.

[roy]

The legal costs in these cases always seem to be way out of proportion to the perceived "damage".

[sweetscience]

Solicitors get sued and lose ALOT... more than any other trade

there are so few insurers offering Professional Indemnity Insurance for this trade due to this.

[magwitch]

There's certain people that I wouldn't touch with a barge-pole :P .

[dookus]

I remember wondering at the time he left Warren whether this would turn out to be a good idea. Now we know. A sad fact of life it is, but unless your contract explicitly says so, getting paid late is not usually a fundamental breach of contract (i.e. the kind that lets the innocent party terminate it immediately) and Burns has paid dearly for having thought that it gave him the right to walk away. This is why boxers lose years of their life to legal wranglings - Ricky could have sued his promoter for the missing wages without terminating his contract and (if they didn't go insolvent) could have regained his earnings that way, but then he'd have been stuck in legal limbo waiting for his case to be resolved and not fighting.

We need to put an end to the practice of having boxers both managed and promoted by the same party - the conflict of interest is just too great and the position it puts boxers in when they don't get paid is unjust and inexcusable. A body that gives independent legal advice to boxers wouldn't go amiss either. As the last case between them showed, we also need to put an end to boxers having to sign contracts in their own name while the promoter is able to use a company - the result now is that Burns is personally liable for his debts to FW but he cannot collect on his judgment against FW's company. Let's hope he's made himself at least partially judgment-proof.

It is easy to blame Burns' lawyers for this. They may or not have been negligent; I don't know from what information there is in the public domain. Maybe Ricky did not reveal everything to them that he should have done; getting the right information out of your client is a recurring headache for every litigation lawyer. But Hearn also needs to take a long look at himself. Trying to use the existence of a letter from Burns that supposedly proved that his contract with Warren was over is just ridiculously amateurish and makes me wonder whether he'd been advised properly (or indeed if he was paying attention when he did get advised). I only hope that he does the right thing and foots at least a share of the massive bill that should be landing on Ricky's desk shortly.

[Fantastic Giants]

A more pertinent question is what a top level sportsman is doing being advised by a man like Alex Morrison. Fair enough if you're a journeyman looking for a fight in a leisure centre but the idea this guy is in any way qualified to advise or maximise the earning potential of a world champion is insane

VERY good point, self styled 'gangster/aged hardman' 'BIG' Alex Morrison is a borderline imbecile and was completely out of his depth 'managing' a title level fighter.

With regards to Warren he took a bloke who was barely Euro title level and 'made' him a two time world 'champion'

[Fantastic Giants]

I hope Warren sues Bellew next and bankrupts him as well.

[billy nelson]

Are you aware of the payment terms in Burns' contract ?

Was all publicised in the first court case, the money was long overdue, it was supposed to be paid in installments, but after the first two, the money stopped coming.

I'd love to know we're you get your false info mate

[Sklar]

I remember wondering at the time he left Warren whether this would turn out to be a good idea. Now we know. A sad fact of life it is, but unless your contract explicitly says so, getting paid late is not usually a fundamental breach of contract (i.e. the kind that lets the innocent party terminate it immediately) and Burns has paid dearly for having thought that it gave him the right to walk away. This is why boxers lose years of their life to legal wranglings - Ricky could have sued his promoter for the missing wages without terminating his contract and (if they didn't go insolvent) could have regained his earnings that way, but then he'd have been stuck in legal limbo waiting for his case to be resolved and not fighting.

We need to put an end to the practice of having boxers both managed and promoted by the same party - the conflict of interest is just too great and the position it puts boxers in when they don't get paid is unjust and inexcusable. A body that gives independent legal advice to boxers wouldn't go amiss either. As the last case between them showed, we also need to put an end to boxers having to sign contracts in their own name while the promoter is able to use a company - the result now is that Burns is personally liable for his debts to FW but he cannot collect on his judgment against FW's company. Let's hope he's made himself at least partially judgment-proof.

It is easy to blame Burns' lawyers for this. They may or not have been negligent; I don't know from what information there is in the public domain. Maybe Ricky did not reveal everything to them that he should have done; getting the right information out of your client is a recurring headache for every litigation lawyer. But Hearn also needs to take a long look at himself. Trying to use the existence of a letter from Burns that supposedly proved that his contract with Warren was over is just ridiculously amateurish and makes me wonder whether he'd been advised properly (or indeed if he was paying attention when he did get advised). I only hope that he does the right thing and foots at least a share of the massive bill that should be landing on Ricky's desk shortly.

Good post.

Almost without exception, employees are paid on time and rightly so but businesses (including the self-employed) invariably end up having to wait sometimes for a whole host of reasons. It's not good but it is normal. That boxers have 'been in camp' and are 'putting their lives on the line' doesn't make them special. Breaking contracts and running to lawyers is immature, naive and costly. If you're going to get paid, you're going to get paid, if you're not, you're not - even if a judge sometimes says you should.

[billy nelson]

A more pertinent question is what a top level sportsman is doing being advised by a man like Alex Morrison. Fair enough if you're a journeyman looking for a fight in a leisure centre but the idea this guy is in any way qualified to advise or maximise the earning potential of a world champion is insane

VERY good point, self styled 'gangster/aged hardman' 'BIG' Alex Morrison is a borderline imbecile and was completely out of his depth 'managing' a title level fighter.

With regards to Warren he took a bloke who was barely Euro title level and 'made' him a two time world 'champion'

ricky made Ricky a world champion mate

[palooka]

A more pertinent question is what a top level sportsman is doing being advised by a man like Alex Morrison. Fair enough if you're a journeyman looking for a fight in a leisure centre but the idea this guy is in any way qualified to advise or maximise the earning potential of a world champion is insane

VERY good point, self styled 'gangster/aged hardman' 'BIG' Alex Morrison is a borderline imbecile and was completely out of his depth 'managing' a title level fighter.

With regards to Warren he took a bloke who was barely Euro title level and 'made' him a two time world 'champion'

ricky made Ricky a world champion mate

I think you're underselling yourself their Billy.

[billy nelson]

Moral of the story, don't sign a contract if you're not willing to see it out.

moral of the story pay what your due within the rules

[Counter-puncher]

A more pertinent question is what a top level sportsman is doing being advised by a man like Alex Morrison. Fair enough if you're a journeyman looking for a fight in a leisure centre but the idea this guy is in any way qualified to advise or maximise the earning potential of a world champion is insane

VERY good point, self styled 'gangster/aged hardman' 'BIG' Alex Morrison is a borderline imbecile and was completely out of his depth 'managing' a title level fighter.

With regards to Warren he took a bloke who was barely Euro title level and 'made' him a two time world 'champion'

[Counter-puncher]

It is easy to blame Burns' lawyers for this. They may or not have been negligent; I don't know from what information there is in the public domain. Maybe Ricky did not reveal everything to them that he should have done; getting the right information out of your client is a recurring headache for every litigation lawyer. But Hearn also needs to take a long look at himself. Trying to use the existence of a letter from Burns that supposedly proved that his contract with Warren was over is just ridiculously amateurish and makes me wonder whether he'd been advised properly (or indeed if he was paying attention when he did get advised). I only hope that he does the right thing and foots at least a share of the massive bill that should be landing on Ricky's desk shortly.

[Fantastic Giants]

ricky made Ricky a world champion mate

I'm in no way denigrating Ricky's achievements or ability but you have to be honest Billy he DID benefit from good matchmaking & promotion. Other than the excellent win over Martinez he never beat anyone who was truly 'world class', Evensen was a featherweight (who could probably have done bantam) Laryea's only decent win was over Paul Appleby (prior to that he'd never beaten anyone with a winning record) Cook was a near cripple, Katsidis was shot, Mitchell is at best 'near' world class on a good day, he was clearly losing to Gonzalez, then he 'lost' to Beltran/Crawford/Zlaticanin.

Without the backing of Warren he'd have been lucky to pick up the British title.

[Fantastic Giants]

Hope Matchroom are covering Burn's legal fees

[JimJim2009]

With regards to Warren he took a bloke who was barely Euro title level and 'made' him a two time world 'champion'[/quote]ricky made Ricky a world champion mate[/quote]

I think you're underselling yourself their Billy.[/quote]

X2. When you look at how Ricky was performing before and after he joined up with billy it really does speak for itself. And what class billy has shown since Ricky switched trainers