Paddy Donovan and Lewis Crocker are set to return to Belfast’s SSE Arena for their late August rematch with an outdoor event at Windsor Park now seemingly unlikely.

The welterweights met in a fiery first encounter on March 1, but the ending was marred by controversy as Donovan was DQed for hitting Crocker after the bell to end the eighth round.

Limerick man Donovan was well ahead on all three scorecards at the time of the stoppage despite having a point deducted for use of the head in Rounds 6 and 8, and the decision to throw him out incensed his team.

As such, they began their appeal to the IBF within an hour of the final bell. The showdown had been a final eliminator for the IBF welterweight title so it was down to them to decide how to proceed.

Then, in late March, the IBF upheld the appeal made by Donovan’s joint managers Andy Lee and Keith Sullivan by ordering an immediate rematch.

Eddie Hearn, who promoted the initial fight, told The Ring that the rematch looked to be heading outdoors with a plan to stage it at the 25,000-capacity Windsor Park in Belfast.

But now he has confirmed that it is almost certainly going to take place at the SSE Arena, which played host to their first fight, due to spiralling costs for an outdoors event.

He told The Ring: “There’s now a very good chance it won’t be at Windsor. ... We will probably now do it at the arena.

“The issue with going outside is, with the costs and everything, you've got to be doing more than 20,000 tickets to make the delta positive of doing it in an arena with 9,000. That’s a huge amount of tickets.

“Would it do 15 or 16,000? Probably. And don’t get me wrong, I love an outdoor show. But there’s also a lot to be said about going into an absolutely packed out arena. The atmosphere last time was [expletive] mental and it’ll be even more wild the second time around.

“We are just finalising everything with the two fighters, and in late August or maybe early September I think you’ll see the rematch and the arena looks most likely.”

Donovan, 26, is (14-1, 11 KOs) as a result of the DQ while Crocker (21-0, 11 KOs) maintained his undefeated record.