A doping scandal is emerging surrounding WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury and his cousin Hughie Fury. According to the British publication the Daily Mail, in February 2015 both Furys failed drugs tests in February 2015 for the prohibited substance nandrolone, which is a steroid. Tyson had Christian Hammer and Hughie had just defeated Andriy Rudenko. In November 2015, Tyson would defeat Wladimir Klitschko to become the world heavyweight champion. However, charges were not brought until June 2016. There is also an allegation Tyson refused to take a drug test in 2016. Tyson did not fight again until 2018, blaming a number of injuries and personal problems, but the steroid issue was never in the public forefront. Hughie remained active with no apparent limit on his ability totake fights. The charges were not resolved until December 2017, when according to the Daily Mail, that the matter with UKAD [the British doping testing authority] was resolved, with a deal that saw UKAD issue two-year suspensions, BACKDATED to December 2015, meaning the boxers were never blocked from fights and were given a very lenient, some might say non-existent sentence. The leniency and secretiveness has been attributed to UKAD allegedly making errors in the manner in which the case was brought.
The suspensions were not generally reported, but have come to light now as an elderly British farmer named Martin Carefoot has told the Daily Mail that he agreed to a payment of about $30,000 in exchange for signing documents drafted by the Furys' attorneys saying he supplied the Furies with meat from a wild, uncastrated boar that caused the positive tests. Carefoot now says he never supplied the boars to the Furys and also that the Fury's never paid him the money he was promised. Carefoot therefore is admitting he lied about supplying the boars, so his credibility is suspect-- however it is not yet disproven.
In light of the article published on Sunday regarding Tyson Fury, promoter Frank Warren has issued the following statement: “The farmer making these outrageous allegations sent me a letter last October, full of errors and basically telling me he had committed perjury by signing statements under oath and lying. When I called him, he asked for money. I told him to clear off and get in contact with UKAD. He chose not to speak to UKAD but instead speak to a newspaper. How anybody can take this man seriously is beyond belief. Tyson has never met this man in his life. What a load of rubbish. We’ll leave this with UKAD to look into and don’t expect it to go any further. It looks like while the football season has been paused, there’s nothing to write about and silly season has instead commenced.“
