Viðtal við Frank Maloney fyrrverandi umboðsmann Lennox Lewis.
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FRANK MALONEY was stunned when first asked to agree a new contract by Lennox Lewis and his new team.
The agreement included a confidentiality clause and it remained unsigned on his desk for six months until Lewis ran out of patience.
That was last week — and the axe for manager Maloney came just 10 days before Lewis attempts to regain his WBC and IBF titles against Hasim Rahman at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas tomorrow.
Londoner Maloney had been at Lewis’ side since the day he first turned professional right through to unifying the heavyweight division against Evander Holyfield.
In an interview given to The Sun before Lewis’ gagging order, Maloney said: “We’d worked together for more than a decade with little more than a standard British Boxing Board of Control contract that had long since run out.
“But Lewis’ entire camp had become paranoid, no it had gone beyond paranoia — and I was about to become a victim.
“For 11 years I had worked without any confidentiality clause and all of a sudden there was pressure coming at me from every angle.
“It was like that old joke about mushroom management — keep ’em in the dark and just throw crap at them.”
Maloney said: “The contract itself was a joke. I honestly believed that if I signed it I would have been taken along for the ride for the rematch against Rahman and then sacked.
“I couldn’t talk to the Press without Lennox’s permission.
“It was so one-sided it was untrue and my intelligence was insulted — I refused to be treated like a nodding dog.”
Maloney was asked to thrash out his problems with the newest member of Lewis’ team — football agent Jerome Anderson.
But Maloney said: “I didn’t know him from Adam — he didn’t know anything about boxing — so I refused.
“They persuaded me to take part in a telephone conference but I’d made up my mind I was not going to Vegas for the Rahman fight unless I had a properly-defined role — but I wasn’t given one.
“Let’s face it, they would have wheeled me out as some kind of a face-saving job.
“I told them I had the impression I was not wanted in the team so let’s come to a settlement.
“Lennox had changed the whole way his camp was run.
“I had criticised Lewis’ trainer Manny Steward and labelled some members of his team as Johnny-come-latelies.
“When Lennox heard, he phoned me briefly.
“There was a nice chunk of money to be earned in Las Vegas by just going along with everyone but it had become a matter of principle.
“I was not prepared to bury my head in the sand. The world title was lost because of our own stupidity yet no one wanted to stand up and say it.
“I have no problem with Lennox but I am disappointed in his behaviour as a human being.
“I think he could have picked up the phone and I would rather he’d said ‘thanks for the memories Frank, let’s work out a settlement and part on good terms’.
“I know Lennox personally better than anyone else and I believe he was not personally responsible for my sacking.
“All that time as a team and he can’t even pick up the phone and talk to me. He could have said, there’s a breakdown let’s see how we can get around this and make it work.
“It’s no good washing dirty linen in public, everyone knows relationships break down, runs their course or people change.
“I expected to be sacked but they can’t sack someone who didn’t want to be there and I didn’t.”
Lewis claimed he axed Maloney because he had demanded ridiculous amounts of money.
But Maloney says his demand for a pay-off was based on what he would have earned for the next three fights if he had remained with the former world heavyweight champion.
Maloney said: “I’m not suing Lewis but I have instructed my lawyer to seek some kind of settlement that I feel I am due.”
Another reason put forward for Maloney’s sacking is that there was a conflict of interest as he worked for rival promoter Frank Warren.
Lewis has set up his own promotional company called Lion, who have had some shows on the BBC.
But Maloney said: “How they can say there is a conflict of interest is beyond me. Before I went to work for Sports Network I sat down with Lennox.
“I had been offered a good contract with Warren’s firm but before I went I tried to find out if there would be a problem.
“I’m not the type to sit at home twiddling thumbs and my position with Lennox was no longer a full-time role.
“Now, a year later, there is a problem with me working for them.”
The end, when it came, was swift.
Maloney said: “How did I find out? A fax was sent to my home in Kent while I was in America and my wife Tracey phoned me in the States to let me know.”
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