British boxer Amir Khan extended a planned five-day stay in Qatar into a three-week visit of the country.

For the British boxer who won an Olympic silver medal in Athens at the age of 17 and went on to become a World Champion on two occasions, there is a simple message to be learnt from his glittering career: Work hard, and you can achieve anything.
The reigning WBC Silver Welterweight champion is gunning for Doha to be the venue of his next fight in 2016 potentially with Manny Pacquiao. Khan, who who became the youngest ever British Olympic medallist in boxing, extended a planned five-day stay in Qatar into a three-week visit of the country.
The 28-year-old native of Bolton, a two times former champion in WBA and IBF light welterweight, was upbeat about the preparations for the 2022 FIFA World Cup Qatar during a visit this week to the offices of the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC).  
The man with a 31-3 win-loss record since turning professional in 2005 is known to be a workaholic and expressed empathy with the progress of the preparations for the region’s watershed tournament.
Having been briefed on the six stadiums currently under construction, as well as the SC workers’ welfare standards and co-ordination with infrastructure projects such as Qatar Rail, Khan said he expected the tournament to be a memorable one for fans from his country.
“I think it will be amazing for British fans to come here and see what the World Cup is going to be like, and experience what I’ve experienced on my trip,” Khan told www.sc.qa. “We’re a couple of years away from Qatar 2022, but it already looks amazing as it is and I heard it’s going to be built up even more. So I’m really looking forward to it myself. I’ve got friends here now, and my stay was meant to be five days but I extended it to three weeks and flew my family out as well. It’s because it’s a chilled and nice place. I’ve been to other places around the Middle East but I have to say this is one of my favourite places because you can do your training and still have nice weather, and have good food at the same time.”
As Khan continues to prepare for his next fight, he also revealed that discussions were advancing with Manny Pacquiao’s team – and the boxing icon said the fight could well take place in Qatar. “The Manny Pacquiao fight could happen here, we’re still in talks with his team. We’re just waiting on when the fight could happen. If it is here, I’d love that, because it’s not too far from England. It’s only a six or seven hour flight. It depends, either here or Vegas. With the facilities I’ve seen and the way Qatar is promoting sport and having the World Cup here in 2022, it could be a perfect place to have a big boxing fight, which no Middle East country has ever had. It is the same with the World Cup, no country of this region has had that so Qatar is moving forward with sport.”
The British boxer also learned about the SC’s Generation Amazing programme and discussed the work being done with youngsters in Pakistan, where Generation Amazing built football pitches and is using football to promote social development.
“We had a really good meeting here today which was about promoting sport, football and boxing in countries like Pakistan and countries in Asia. I think what they’re doing here is a really great job in supporting football in countries like Pakistan where they really need the support to put them in the right direction and channel their energy into the right things.”
Khan concluded by highlighting the power of sport to unite people from different parts of the world: “Sport brings everyone together. It’s like when I fight, you’ll get 20 or 30 thousand people at the fight. All different races, colours and religions. With football it is the same thing. What the Supreme Committee is doing is good because it will be amazing to have different types of people from around the world supporting their teams. We need more events like this.”
Sc.qa