Khan's gold coach facing two extra rounds if Beijing lads are a knockout

Terry Edwards, the father figure behind the largest British boxing team ever to qualify for an Olympics Games, has admitted that success in Beijing will spark a personal battle on two fronts.

In one corner, waving lucrative contracts, will be the promoters who want to turn gold into brass and will lean on medal winners to join the professional ranks, just as Amir Khan did in 2004 after winning silver in Athens.

In the other, possibly brandishing a rolling pin, will be Mrs Edwards. He has yet to convince her that he should postpone his retirement by four years to keep this brilliant team of young men together until the Games in London in 2012.

Boxing clever: Terry Edwards is hoping for a successful Games but he will have a huge fight persuading his wife to let him carry on until 2012

'I'll need a serious chat with my wife. Perhaps I'll have to take her out and get her drunk,' he said.

Undoubtedly, Edwards will be offered enhanced terms to renew his contract next March but he will be just five months short of his 65th birthday.

He has been in charge for the past 22 years but only as a paid official since 2000, when Audley Harrison's gold persuaded UK Sport to invest more heavily in the amateur game.

Edwards, a Londoner, arrived here with his squad and it is easy to see that he has become like a second father to them. 'If Terry wasn't there I'd be gone already,' said Frankie Gavin, who became the first Briton to win a world amateur title last year.

So retaining Edwards is critical but it will also require more than Lottery money to keep the bulk of his squad together for four more years.

He estimates each of his team receives £75,000 annually in travel, health insurance, accommodation, kit and living expenses from Lottery sources. That is more than some professionals get.

'When a pro isn't fighting, he isn't earning. My boys are,' he said. But if they succeed in Beijing the best among them, Gavin particularly, could command the hundreds of thousands Khan was offered to go professional.

Edwards said: 'Rowers and sailors go on after to the law and to become doctors. I don't have anybody in my team who will be a lawyer - only a few who maybe will need one! But what they do have, like any Olympian, is a special talent.

Prospect: There are high hopes for Frankie Gavin

'Theirs happens to be with their hands, and naturally they will look to the professional ranks. All I would like to see is them fulfil their potential first and get their full worth.

'In my time in the game, I can think of many talented amateurs who turned professional far too early because they needed the money and never did achieve their potential.'

Edwards needs to find corporate backers so he can go close to matching the offers that might tempt them to abandon the amateur sport before the London Games.

'We're looking, there's interest,' he said. If he can keep the bulk of his squad together Edwards says the future has never been brighter for the noble art in Britain.

He twisted UK Sport's arm for backing two years ago with a promise to get four boxers qualified for Beijing and one medal. He increased that to two medals and six qualifiers last year but instead, eight qualified.

Gavin, 22, a lightweight from Birmingham who used to spar with Khan, and super-heavyweight David 'Dynamite' Price, 23, a Liverpool plumber, are the best medal hopes and they will be the most difficult to keep on board.

He already has others in a development squad ready to replace them, three of whom are being brought to Macau for experience - European 57kg champion Freddie Evans, European 48kg silver medallist Robert 'Rocky' Wright and Martin Ward from the Repton club which produced Harrison.

'On August 25, 2008, when London starts to be the next Olympic city, sport in Great Britain is going to see a massive turnaround, the like of which we have never seen,' predicted Edwards.

'It's going to be enormous and the potential for the boxers who do well there will be bigger than now.'

That's his sales pitch to his squad. He now has to convince his wife.

GB TEAM: Khalid Yafai (flyweight -51kg); Joe Murray (bantamweight -4kg); Frankie Gavin (lightweight -60kg); Bradley Saunders (light-welterweight -64kg); Billy Joe Saunders (welterweight -69kg); James DeGale (middleweight -75kg); Tony Jeffries (light-heavyweight -80kg); David Price (super-heavyweight +91kg).