Bobby Vanzie WILL fight Graham Earl for the British lightweight belt next month.

After weeks of to-ing and fro-ing, an agreement has been reached and the two rivals will stage their eagerly-awaited re-match on the Matt Skelton bill at London's York Hall on June 5.

The title has been declared vacant after Earl was stripped by the Board of Control for failing to meet two earlier deadlines to fight.

The bout was originally due to take place in March but Earl pulled out with flu. And when it was rescheduled for Barnsley on May 6, he again cancelled with an ankle injury picked up in sparring.

After protests from the Vanzie camp, the belt was declared vacant. But following tough talks this week, it has been agreed that Earl can still have first crack at winning it back against his Bradford rival.

The politics are good news financially for Vanzie, who will now receive an equal split of the purse. Normally the percentage share is 60-40 in favour of the champion.

Vanzie's call to bring the lightweight division to order has also been answered with a timetable of fights drawn up for the rest of the year.

The new champion will make an early voluntary defence against either Lee Meager or Mark Winters and the winner of that is set to face Steve Murray in September.

And Vanzie hopes that a clean sweep of victories will smoke out Jason Cook.

He said: "This is the first time in my career when I've had a real agenda to work towards. There are some good fights on the horizon providing I come up with the belt and see off Earl.

"I'm fed up with having to wait around for an opponent. It's been the same problem for Junior (Witter) because we've both got awkward styles that nobody wants to face.

"But hopefully this is a sign that the board are sorting it out again. You are supposed to put the best fighters together, that's how it always used to be before everyone went off looking for inter-continental belts and nonsense like that.

"And maybe this series of fights will encourage Cook to come out of his shell. He doesn't seem to want to fight any of us at the moment but if I'm victorious in all three this year then I'll be coming after him.

"First I've just got to make sure I back up what I'm saying by beating Earl. It's in London again which isn't ideal but this time I won't leave it to the referee - I'm going in there to take the decision out of his hands."