Tyson Fury spouts odious bile, but some of his fans are even worse - Michael Calvin

THE LAST WORD: Supporters of the boxer have been threatening the partner of athlete Greg Rutherford

A petition calling for the BBC to remove Fury from the SPOTY shortlist has amassed over 120,000 signatures ( Chris Brunskill/Getty Images)

If you consider Tyson Fury a misguided eccentric, a victim of political correctness and a media-driven witch hunt, suspend your faith. Pause for thought, hold your nose, and peer into the sewer of social media.

This is where the slurry of Fury’s abhorrent views solidifies. It is where the dregs of modern society howl. The concept of tolerance is shredded because the impact of the boxer’s homophobia and misogyny is grotesque and inescapable.

On Friday afternoon Susie Verrill shared the threats of sexual violence triggered by her defence of her partner, long-jumper Greg Rutherford, who was persuaded to reconsider his threat to withdraw from the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year awards in protest at Fury’s presence.

The insults aimed at her were uniformly pathetic and bore the hallmarks of a bully’s arrogance. Many were pathologically vile and strayed so far beyond public decency they cannot be recycled with a clear conscience on a platform like this.

They were issued by the sort of people who attempt to intimidate by posting photographs of their genitalia, and believe a request to “show us your fanny” is the height of wit and repartee. Their IQ usually matches their number of Twitter followers, in one case 32.

“I’m no stranger to some online abuse,” Verrill wrote in a lacerating, insightful article for Standard Issue online magazine. “Dick pics are no unicorn poo; those things crop up all the time. Along with threats of violence, sexual aggression and generic, dull declarations of gender stereotypes.”

This case went further: “I was utterly shocked; not at the aggression itself, but that it was their only line of attack. That their immediate counter-argument was to fire relentless suggestions of sexual punishment at me.

“It’s laughable on reflection that, thanks to Greg, trying to argue against the suggestion a woman is reduced to her talents in the kitchen or bedroom, I was now being told to do exactly that.”

Fury contends his views have been distorted, and that he is merely stating the tenets of his narrow form of muscular Christianity. Manchester Police ruled out taking action against him under hate-crime legislation.

Yet, by calling for abortion and homosexuality to be criminalised, and by equating them to paedophilia, he is setting the mob’s agenda. He has the right to hold such opinions, but if he intends to benefit from his status as world heavyweight champion, despite its devalued nature, he cannot expect to avoid their consequences.

Rutherford’s one-year-old son, Milo, was within the orbit of a sinister section of Fury’s followers.

One expletive-ridden rant informed the athlete: “I hope Fury pulls your red head off your shoulders in front of your kid.” Truth be told, Rutherford and I have history. We fell out publicly when I questioned his substance and sense of entitlement on the way to becoming world champion. I respect his achievements, but feel he was mistaken in not carrying through his threat to snub the BBC’s banal beauty pageant.

As someone who has endured similar abuse – my family have been threatened, and I’ve been wished a painful, lingering death by idiots who follow an array of football clubs – our differences must be put aside.

Rutherford and his partner deserve unequivocal support. What they have endured is morally wrong, even if it serves a loftier, wider purpose in highlighting an issue that will not go away. Sport betrays its women. It is used as a shield by bigots who gamble on the decent majority being desensitised to the obscenities they spew.

Verrill began as a rugby writer, and is accustomed to criticism of her credentials as a sporting commentator “based around the fact I didn’t know what I was talking about as I have a pair of breasts”. If, as I fully expect, my timeline turns ugly in the coming days, it will be as nothing compared to the torrent of sexist filth regularly endured by a friend who is a prominent female cricket writer.

Tyson evidently considers himself a “character”. He may sing to his wife in the ring, but the darker side of his nature is rarely buried too deeply. He has already threatened violence against a distinguished colleague, Oliver Holt, for conducting an inconveniently revealing interview.

My first instinct was to give Fury as little leeway as possible to repackage himself as a martyr, but the weakness of that stance is increasingly obvious. Instead of judging him as a “personality”, we should urgently consider the merits of making him a social and sporting pariah.

Leicester City: An apology

Since confession is deemed to be good for the soul, here goes. I might, just might, have said Leicester City would sack Claudio Ranieri with indecent haste and be as good as down when the Christmas decorations went up.

There is nowhere to hide when cyberspace immortalises the stupidity of such predictions. This is one of those times when the columnist’s pulpit is made of balsa wood, unable to withstand the weight of presumption.

Leicester, as every schoolboy knows, are the surprise side of the season. They play with pace and panache. They score goals for fun and have, in Jamie Vardy, football’s version of Rocky Balboa.

Success rewards strategic, analytically precise recruitment. N’Golo Kanté, a French central midfield player of Malian descent, is already worth three times the £5.6m he cost from Caen in August. Algerian winger Riyad Mahrez, signed from Le Havre for £500,000, is an even bigger bargain.

Ranieri may have the bemused air of a man who has found buried treasure while building a sandcastle for his grandchildren, but his light-touch management holds everything together. They have the opportunity to inflict karmic retribution on Chelsea tomorrow, in the sort of match that would summarise how the Premier League appears to have descended into a wormhole.

Jose Mourinho is markedly more bullish, following his side’s qualification for the Champions League knockout stages, but may yet be in more trouble than he realises.