Mayweather-Pacquiao mega-bout tickets still not on general sale

The tickets for the much awaited mega bout between unbeaten US boxing champion Floyd Mayweather and Filipino boxer and politician Manny Pacquiao are still not on general sale and the fight promoter Bob Arum is at a loss to explain the reason behind it.

Pacquiao and Mayweather would face each other in the super-fight in Las Vegas on May 2 in the MGM Grand, which holds 16,500 but only 1,000 tickets are expected to be made available to the wider public.

Contracts with the MGM Grand remain unsigned, while tickets are also not on sale for other venues across Las Vegas and Arum cut a news conference short on Monday before questions could be asked regarding the tickets, the BBC reported.

A representative for Arum, who handles Pacquiao only, revealed that technical issues were to blame for the aborted teleconference, but Arum claimed that he was unhappy with the number of journalists on the call.

Another source close to Arum revealed that, contrary to reports, the ticketing problems have not been caused by Mayweather's camp. After the MGM takes its share of the tickets, each camp is allocated a percentage and is able to resell them to brokers at higher prices.

Last week Mayweather's camp had been accused by Pacquiao's manager Michael Koncz of attempting to manipulate the ticketing.

It has been announced that tickets will eventually be on sale for between 1,000 pounds and 5,040 pounds but those prices have already tripled on the resale market, with one broker, Precision Concierge New York, selling tickets for as much as 58,630 pounds-a-piece, the report added.