The Hit Man's lawyer, Gareth Williams, says that discussions are well underway to stage the fight at Wembley next May.

Williams said: "We have strong links with Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy (Promotions) and we have had discussions with them about fighting Oscar at Wembley."

Added Williams: "It would be the perfect venue and we could look at selling in excess of 80,000 tickets. Oscar has achieved everything in boxing bar recording the record live gate - and he could achieve that if he fought in the UK against Ricky."

We can reveal that the fight with De La Hoya could happen even if Hatton loses to Mayweather. The fight would start at time to suit American pay-per-view giants but also the sell-out UK audience.

"It wouldn't be a 3am fight," continued Williams. "We'd looking to do it possibly on a Sunday evening. Americans have a tradition of watching sport on Sunday afternoons so it would be ideal that way."

Hatton's boxing style has long impressed De La Hoya.  He has spent many hours visting Hatton´s Vegas gym to help him with tactics to beat Mayweather.

De La Hoya lost narrowly to Mayweather earlier in 2007 and there is no doubt he is ideally placed to pass on winning advice to Hatton.

Said Hatton: "Oscar has told me that he believes he would have won the fight if he could have done in the last six rounds what he did in the first six. He watched me train on Monday and believes I can do that."