Fury won’t lose world title over doping allegation: WBC chief

LONDON: Tyson Fury’s reign as world heavyweight champion will not be ended by new claims over an alleged drug-testing scam, according to WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman.

It was alleged in a Mail on Sunday report a farmer was offered money to provide an alibi for Fury’s failed drugs test in 2015.

Fury and his cousin Hughie tested positive for nandrolone in 2015, which they subsequently blamed on eating uncastrated wild boar meat, citing a farmer called Martin Carefoot who claimed to have provided them with the product.

After an expensive and elongated stand-off with UK Anti-doping, Fury and Hughie received retrospective two-year bans and were able to resume their careers in December 2017.

In the Mail report, Carefoot denied having provided the Fury team with the meat, insisting he was offered £25,000 to make up the story in order to aid their case. But Sulaiman, whose WBC belt Fury won against

Deontay Wilder in Las Vegas

last month, said the allegations would have “no impact” on his reign as champion.

“Personally, I prefer to believe Tyson Fury ahead of someone who has already admitted to lying in legal documents for financial gain,” Sulaiman told The Sun.

“The person who has claimed he accepted money to

lie should be the one on trial, in my personal opinion, especially when he has waited five years to tell his story.

“Secondly, around this time Tyson was not involved with the WBC, he did not fight Klitschko for the WBC belt, it was for other titles, so this issue does not impact on him being our heavyweight world champion.”

Fury’s promoter Frank Warren, who was not involved at the time, told The Sun he had previously been sent letters by Carefoot.