Sporting Digest: Boxing

THE World Boxing Organisation are to sue the Irish promoter Barney Eastwood for 'libel and slander' over comments he made after Ray Close's defeat by WBO super-middleweight champion Chris Eubank in May. Close, the Belfast fighter managed by Eastwood, is claiming damages from the WBO on the grounds of negligence.

CHRIS EUBANK and the promoter, Frank Warren, have become embroiled in an argument over VAT, with Eubank claiming that Warren is trying to make him pay VAT on his purse money from the title defence against Ray Close. Warren insists that the full purse of dollars 1,298,758 ( pounds 865,000) was lodged with the British Boxing Board of Control and said: 'There is no basis for Mr Eubank's claim that he is entitled to VAT in addition and we have made that clear in correspondence with his representatives.'