Klitschko manager says Haye fight to be finalised soon

BERLIN (AFP) - The eagerly awaited heavyweight clash between IBF, WBO and IBO world champion Vladimir Klitschko and Britain's rising star David Haye should be finalised in the next week, say the Klitschko camp. "We have reached agreement on the most important points and we hope to be able to officially announce the fight next week," said the Ukrainian's manager Bernd Boente. The fight is expected to take place in Germany - not London, as had previously been expected - on June 20. "There are four sites still in competition to host the fight, which will probably not be in Great Britain, but rather in Germany," added Boente who has been negotiating the fight for the last three months. The elder Klitschko brother Vitali defended his WBC title against Cuba's Juan Carlos Gomez in Stuttgart on Saturday with a ninth-round technical knock-out and Haye is eager to fight either Klitschko. Vladimir Klitschko has won 52 of his 55 fights with 46 knock-outs, while elder brother Vitali has knocked out opponents in 36 of his 37 fights with only two defeats. Although Haye, a former WBA, WBC and WBO cruiserweight champion, has only had one heavyweight fight, he is eager to get in the ring with one of the Klitschkos. And he has even posed with a severed head of Vladimir in a British magazine: an image which did little to impress the Ukrainian brothers.

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