Boxing world champion Manuel Charr wants to get his German passport as soon as possible after the swirl about his nationality,”This time I will try to get my own passport and not leave it to other people”, Charr said in a press release on Thursday.
And further:”I hope that I will be able to defend my first title as a German citizen” Until the end of March Charr has to claim his WBA title against Fres Oquendo (44) from Puerto Rico.
Charr, who was born in Lebanon, admitted on Wednesday that he did not have a German passport. This makes him not the first German heavyweight world champion since Max Schmeling in 1932. Charr blamed the confusion on his lawyers.
“I never cared about naturalization myself, but always had lawyers who did that,”Charr said:”They also told me that the passport was already issued and waiting for me at the office. I shouldn’t have just passed the information along without checking it myself.”
After his World Cup victory last Saturday against Alexander Ustinov, Charr had caused a lot of confusion. Both in an interview with the Bild-Zeitung at the beginning of the week and in Sky Sport News HD on Tuesday, he had declared that he had a valid German ID document. On Wednesday, however, he confirmed in the Cologne Express that he did not have a German passport. Charr denies a deliberate lie:”It certainly wasn’t my intention to fake my fans or make false facts out of them.”