LONDON: Amir Khan withdrew his appeal to the IBF over his split-decision loss to Lamont Peterson because of fears he wouldn’t receive a fair hearing. The British boxer had been campaigning for justice for weeks after claiming poor refereeing and interference with fight judges by a “mystery man” were behind his loss to Peterson in the Dec. 10 fight in Washington.

Khan arrived in New Jersey Tuesday for the scheduled IBF appeal hearing the following day only for the meeting to be canceled, with his camp unhappy there was going to be only “partial representation of fight officials.”

“I told [IBF President Daryl Peoples] that if he was in fact going to have certain people there, and others not, then that does not sound to me as if there was a fully transparent meeting,” said Richard Schaefer, chief executive of Golden Boy Promotions.

“It would have been a one-sided hearing where not all of the parties would have been there to tell the story.”

The unexplained presence at ringside of the “mystery man” – later revealed as Mustafa Ameen, who does unpaid voluntary work for the IBF – added to the “plethora of anomalies” which the Khan camp claimed marred the fight.

Video footage showed Ameen, who wasn’t authorized to be at ringside, distracting judges and leaning across WBA supervisor Michael Welsh during the fight.

Ameen told the BBC Wednesday that he was simply correcting mistakes made by Welsh on his scorecard.

“I noticed one error and a subsequent error. I assisted him in correcting it without touching anything,” Ameen said.

Khan lost his WBA and IBF belts to Peterson but the WBA has already granted the Briton a rematch, which Golden Boy says will be staged within 180 days. Khan now just wants to focus his attention on the rematch.

“Golden Boy Promotions and Team Khan are pleased to have been vindicated by the World Boxing Association’s recent decision to mandate an immediate rematch and still hope that Mr. Peterson will honor earlier statements in which he asserted that he would be happy to agree to a rematch,” a Golden Boy statement read.

Elsewhere, heavyweight title challenger Dereck Chisora has labeled fellow Briton David Haye embarrassing and told the former WBA champion to forget about coming out of retirement.

Haye, who was beaten last July by Vladimir Klitschko in Hamburg, retired in October but has been offered a way back with a fight against Klitschko’s older brother, WBC belt holder Vitali later this year.

“Haye had his chance to back up all the pre-fight bull he came out with against Vladimir, but he put up that embarrassing performance and then topped it by blaming it on [an] injured little toe,” Chisora said in a statement issued by his promoter Frank Warren Wednesday. “I can’t see how the British public will forget about that and now he’s coming out with the same bull again by saying that he will go to war and win his title back if he gets Vitali.”