‘Eight or nine’ offers made to stage unification

WBO and WBA titles and set up the prospect of a clash with fellow Briton Fury. The winner will be the first undisputed world heavyweight champion since Britain’s Lennox Lewis in 2000, before a boxer had to also hold the WBO belt to be recognised as undisputed.

Fury was last night made odds-on favourite. Joshua has 24 wins and one defeat from 25 professional bouts, while Fury is unbeaten in his 31 professional fights.

Fury won the WBA, IBF and WBO belts by beating Wladimir Klitschko in 2015, but took nearly three years out of the sport battling depression and serving a backdated two-year UK Anti-doping ban.

The 32-year-old has not fought for more than a year, since his knockout win against American Deontay Wilder.

Hearn said the next stage in the process of securing venues and dates was “progressing well”. He added: “Bob Arum [Fury’s promoter in the US] has said the contract is agreed and that is correct.”

Confirming terms yesterday, Hearn said: “We’d like to get a site deal confirmed in the next month. I feel we’ve done the hard part.

“We’ve already had approaches from eight or nine sites,” he added.

The fighters would receive a 50-50 split in the first bout and a 60-40 split in the rematch, with the winner getting the higher share.

Fury ignited a global furore last year when he thanked promoter Daniel Kinahan for helping initially set up the Joshua fight. All parties have since said that the Irishman – who vigorously denies links to an alleged drugs and arms empire – would not be involved further.