Saunders fined £100k by boxing chiefs for role in ‘sickening’ video

BILLY Joe Saunders has been fined £100,000 and given a severe reprimand about his future conduct after video footage emerged of him appearing to offer a woman drugs.

Saunders’ actions were filmed from his car and seemingly show him offering £150 worth of drugs to the woman to perform a sex act as well as asking her to punch a passer-by, which she does, before he drives off.

The WBO middleweight champion was last week hit with a misconduct charge by the British Boxing Board of Control, which found Saunders guilty of bringing the sport into disrepute at a hearing yesterday.

A BBBofC statement said: “The stewards have found Mr Saunders guilty of bringing boxing into disrepute and have fined him £100,000 and issued a severe reprimand as to his future conduct.”

No drugs could be seen in the clip and the 29-year-old Saunders, who is due to defend his title against Demetrius Andrade in Boston on October 20, described the incident as an ill-judged joke.

He wrote on Twitter last week: “(I) apologise to everybody who’s took offence, totally in the wrong, can’t do anything but be sorry.”

A statement released by Nottinghamshire Police described the footage as “sickening”, and an investigation is to be launched into the “number of offences” seen.

In Belfast last month Saunders was chased out of a restaurant having thrown chicken at WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder, here for the big Windsor Park bill.