LONG-TIME Manny Pacquiao manager Rod Nazario said he’s out if the Filipino ring sensation insists on working with his new management team.
“If anyone of those people around him now — including (trainer) Freddie Roach — ang hindi niya mabibitawan (stays with him), I’ll be out,” said Nazario in a press conference Tuesday night.
Pacquiao has figured in a financial squabble with Nazario and American promoter Murad Muhammad since losing to Mexican fighter Erik Morales in Las Vegas last month.
The disagreement started after Pacquiao’s new American manager Shelly Finkel announced several days after the bout that Pacquiao’s former handlers had not been paying his taxes since he started fighting in the US four years ago.
The new management team of the Ring Magazine featherweight champion also said that Muhammad took Pacquiao’s 40-percent share of the pay-per-view revenue of his bout with Morales.
But Nazario debunked Pacquiao’s claim to the pay-per-view revenues, saying no such contract existed. “It’s only Finkel’s group who’s been telling Manny that he has a share,” he said.
Nazario also shot down the tax issue allegations by presenting photocopied documents, including issued checks to the US Internal Revenue Service.
“These people are poisoning the mind of Manny,” said Nazario. “The problem with Manny is he’s listening to these people he has only known for a few weeks. He has known me for 10 years. ‘Yun ang sinasama ng loob ko (And that hurts).”
Nazario maintained that the $525,000 IRS deducted from Pacquiao’s $1.75 million purse was the required 30 percent tax, not a cover-up for previous tax liabilities.
He even pointed out that he hasn’t received a cent from Pacquiao’s biggest ever prize.
