Over the past couple of months, there have been a number of reports from several different individuals regarding offers that were made for a potential showdown between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. Thus far, the only one that both sides have actually confirmed is the $40 million offer that Mayweather phoned Pacquiao about in January. Shortly after that news broke, Pacquiao's adviser, Michael Koncz, revealed that he personally made a counter offer to Mayweather on behalf of Pacquiao. Not long after that, Pacquiao's business adviser, Rex "Wakee" Salud, alleged that Team Pacquiao reached out to Mayweather again to make another offer, a reported 70/30 split with the winner getting the lion's share, although it's unclear as to exactly who they reached out to or who made the offer. Therein lies the question. Exactly who has the authority to negotiate a split on Pacquiao's behalf? According to his promoter, Bob Arum, none of them do.
"People who talk about possible revenue splits for a Pacquiao-Mayweather fight, besides having no authority to do so, are all amateurs," Arum would tell Ronnie Nathanielsz of the Manila Standard earlier this week. As far as Arum is concerned, Pacquiao has a problem with individuals around him speaking on his behalf when they have absolutely no authority to do so. It's a notion that holds true considering that Pacquiao, the fighter, is signed to Top Rank Inc., the promotional company, and as such, the only people who have the authority to negotiate Pacquiao's percentages for fights are the individuals that run the company that he fights for, Bob Arum and Todd duBoef. In other words, Pacquiao is not his own boss, therefore, he can't really negotiate or accept any offer without Top Rank putting their stamp of approval on it.
Nevertheless, that hasn't stopped individuals from attempting to negotiate the fight on Pacquiao's behalf. "The final offer that Manny gave was even better than that because after Manny talked to him on the phone, he gave me instructions to go back and the final offer that was given to Floyd was a $50 million guarantee and the split of the revenue be 45/55. Manny says let's make it a prize fight, so the winner would get a prize, an extra ten percent," Koncz explained as he discussed his attempt to counter Mayweather's offer of $40 million. Although Koncz says he was acting on behalf of Pacquiao as his manager, sources tell us that Koncz doesn't even officially have a managerial contract with the 8-division world champion. If that's the case, one has to wonder what kind of authority he himself has to discuss purse splits, as he he was allegedly doing for the past few months.
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