If I told you everything you would start crying: Amir Khan on why he's left his family

If a highly scrutinised family feud wasn't enough, British-Pakistani boxer Amir Khan has also had to contend with professional abandonment as his team, which consisted of father Shah Khan, uncle Taz Khan and best friend Saj Mohamed, left him after his big loss against Mexican boxer Canelo in May.

In an interview on Boxing News, Amir confirmed, "Taz is no longer working, Saj is no longer working. Saj was my best friend and he left. It wasn’t a nice way they left. I had the final say. I said, ‘Look guys, if you’re not going to work, I don’t want to be paying you for doing nothing’.

“They probably thought: ‘this is our best chance to cash out, Amir is done with his career and we’re probably going to ask for redundancy and get out’. And that’s what they all did. They all wanted a big cheque and they left.”

Disagreements over finances appear to be the chief cause of their split.

“Something funny happened to me actually,” he shared. “I got a bill for a server for like eight grand. I thought, ‘eight grand? What’s that for?’ I emailed the guy back asking what the bill was for.

“He said, ‘oh that’s for the server in your office’. I thought to myself, ‘I’m a fighter – I don’t need an office’. Why would I need an office with a server? I’m a fighter.

“I’m the only person going in the ring but I’m paying server costs and God knows what else for an office that I don’t even need. My office is the gym. The server is for all old emails going back years – what do I need those for? I don’t even look at my emails now!

“When you’re making millions, sometimes people forget about the little costs but they add up, man."

After his May defeat, Amir wanted to take back control over his finances, which ultimately resulted in Taz and Saj's departure.

“I lost in May but by October/November it had all changed,” he explains.

“Because I said I wanted to take full control of everything, my old team said, ‘there you go’ and walked away.

“I said to Saj, ‘I want to keep you on, I’ll still pay you and I’ll look after you and even after my career I want you to run and manage everything’. He turned around and said ‘no’. He thought ‘Amir is done now’.

“When he said that it was a big slap [on] my face because I was always there for him. I thought when it was my turn and I needed him there for me… The people who should’ve been there for me, weren’t.

“I should have got on to my things a few years ago when I was 21 or 22 and made sure everything was right. I didn’t want to ever think about that. I just assumed it would be going the right way.

“I had property advisers who used to rip me off, I had accountants who ripped me off. I changed everything.

“With what I’ve gone through if I told you everything you would start crying. When money starts coming in a lot of people change. When it stops you see their true colours. And when I took a loss and everyone thought I was done, I saw everyone’s true colours. That is why I had to make these big changes.”

But Amir thinks his career is far from done. With talks about a £32m superfight with Manny Pacquaio ongoing, he thinks his "time to shine" is coming up.

“After the Canelo fight my old team thought, ‘he’s had his big fight, he’s done now’. So this is the chance for me now to prove everyone wrong.

“I’m not done. I’ve just turned 30, I’ve still got some good years left in me. It could be my time to shine.”

“I’m happy,” he insists. “It has matured me a lot – I saw white hair on me for the first time in my life on my beard. That’s all the bills and all the problems."