Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao ticket delay because contract ‘hasn’t been signed’

The fight, which is due to take place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, will see two of boxing’s greats finally go toe-to-toe. Just short of 17,000 tickets will go on sale for the event but as of yet not a single one has been released to the public.

There were a number of reasons rumoured to be behind the delay, but on Tuesday evening, just 11 days before the fight, ESPN’s Darren Rovell reported that the MGM Grand requested to be allowed to begin making tickets available while the two parties continue to quarrel over the contract.

At the very heart of the conflict is yet another dispute between Pacquiao’s promoter, Bob Arum, and Mayweather’s team. Arum explained to ESPN that his company, Top Rank, Mayweather Promotions and the casino all “agreed that we would all be signatories on the final contract and then they sent us a draft of the agreement and it excluded us.”

If Arum is not a signatory to the contract with MGM, he and Top Rank are unable to have any input into how the fight is promoted and staged. Rovell’s report quotes the CEO of Mayweather Promotions, Leonard Ellerbe, as saying: “The bottom line is that Bob isn’t willing to live with the agreement signed a couple months ago, which doesn’t allow him to be in control.”

However, despite there being less than a fortnight until the two are supposed to meet in Las Vegas, Ellerbe said that he still believed the fight will go ahead.

“Despite all of this, I’m confident the world will get to see the fight they’ve been waiting for,” he added.