Bob Arum doesn’t think Josh Warrington switching promoters will prevent Warrington from fighting Shakur Stevenson later this year.

Stevenson’s promoter still expects their featherweight title unification fight to take place this summer in Warrington’s hometown of Leeds, England. Putting Stevenson-Warrington together now will require Arum’s company, Top Rank Inc., to work with Matchroom Boxing’s Eddie Hearn, who announced Wednesday that his company has re-signed Warrington to a promotional deal.

Earlier Wednesday, Frank Warren, Hearn’s promotional rival in the United Kingdom, announced that he and Warrington went their separate ways because the unbeaten IBF featherweight champion and Warren couldn’t come to another agreement before their contract expired.

“We knew it was happening,” Arum told BoxingScene.com regarding Warrington changing promoters. “We knew Warrington had crossed wires with Frank and was going to Eddie. It was up to [Warrington] to decide. We were OK with whoever became his promoter. It doesn’t help and it doesn’t hurt. We had always anticipated going over to England to do the fight. We don’t have the manpower or the time to do the fight ourselves over in England, and there are two promoters there – Hearn and Warren, both of whom we have dealt with extensively.

“And I have absolutely no problem whatsoever dealing with Eddie on that fight. In fact, I welcome it. He may be a crappy promoter in America, but in England, he’s a very good promoter. So, you know, if Shakur is successful at The Garden in March, we anticipate this summer he will go over to England to fight Warrington.”

Stevenson (13-0, 7 KOs), a 2016 Olympic silver medalist from Newark, New Jersey, is scheduled to make the first defense of the WBO featherweight title against Colombia’s Miguel Marriaga (29-3, 25 KOs) on March 14 in The Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden. ESPN, which is partnered with Arum’s Top Rank, will televise Stevenson-Marriaga.

Warrington’s next fight could be announced as part of a press conference Thursday at Emerald Headingly Stadium, a cricket and rugby complex in Leeds. Depending on when Warrington (30-0, 7 KOs) returns to the ring and the deadline by which he’ll have to make a mandated second defense against Sheffield’s Kid Galahad (27-1, 16 KOs), a potential fight versus Stevenson could be pushed back until after the time frame Arum mentioned.

Nevertheless, Arum clarified Wednesday that a Stevenson-Warrington fight would have to be broadcast by ESPN in the United States. The 88-year-old promoter pointed to the Vasiliy Lomachenko-Luke Campbell lightweight title fight as an example of how a Stevenson-Warrington deal should be structured.

“The fight will be on ESPN in the United States,” Arum said. “The fight, in the UK, will be on Sky [Sports]. Outside of the U.S. and the UK, if Eddie wants DAZN to have it for Germany, those kinds of things, we’ll accommodate it. No problem. But we’ll do this in a similar way to the way we did the Lomachenko-Campbell fight.”

A month before ESPN aired Lomachenko-Campbell in the U.S. on August 31 from O2 Arena in London, DAZN streamed a junior welterweight title unification bout between one of Arum’s fighters, WBC/WBO 140-pound champ Jose Ramirez, and Maurice Hooker, a former WBO champion Hearn’s company co-promotes. Ramirez earned a career-high purse for that fight, which Arum and Ramirez’s handlers considered an offer they couldn’t refuse to take him from ESPN to DAZN for one fight.

In his most recent fight, Warrington stopped France’s Sofiane Takoucht (35-4-1, 13 KOs) in the second round October 12 at First Direct Arena in Leeds. Eleven of Warrington’s past 13 fights have been held in Leeds, including a split-decision defeat of Wales’ Lee Selby to win the IBF featherweight title in May 2018 at Elland Road, a soccer stadium.

Stevenson won the WBO’s 126-pound championship when he out-boxed Joet Gonzalez (23-1, 14 KOs), of Glendora, California, and won a unanimous decision October 26 at Reno-Sparks Convention Center in Reno, Nevada.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.