There's been another twist in the mooted Tyson Fury v Anthony Joshua fight, which was being negotiated by Dubliner Daniel Kinahan.
Today in the Telegraph, Gareth Davies reports that Fury has split from Kinahan and Bob Arum of Top Rank will fill his shoes in negotiating the final terms of the fight. Davies's source is Arum himself.
The report comes on the back of a spate of bad publicity for Kinahan after the Taoiseach and several TDs expressed concern in the Dáil about his role in such a high profile event given his ties to criminality in Ireland.
Last week, Bahraini sports promotion company KHK announced it was cutting ties with Kinahan after enlisting him as an advisor in May.
This is not the first time bad publicity has forced Kinahan to take a step back from his boxing interests. In 2017, Matthew Macklin, who started MGM gym, later renamed MTK, with Kinahan, said 'bad publicity' following the Dublin Regency shooting had forced Kinahan to take a 'backwards step' in the boxing business. Macklin told the Indo at the time:
Obviously then there's been a lot of bad publicity... Daniel has taken a backwards step.
"He still advises lots of fighters."
Arum, for his part, has been a huge backer of Kinahan over the past few weeks. Speaking to Irish radio, he said of the allegations regarding Kinahan's criminal background:
First they are allegations and secondly they don't really speak to how he has acted when he has been involved in boxing which is forthright, honest, reliable etc.
"In boxing, you might remind your Prime Minister, we've had situations where we've had athletes who were accused and convicted of major crimes, served their times and came into the sport of boxing and excelled.
"This is not unusual where somebody has some questionable background in the past then goes into boxing.
"He's judged for how he acts in the sport, whether as a performer or a businessman, this is not unusual for the sport of boxing.
