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Tyson Fury has issued an apology days after making anti-semitic and sexist comments in a bizarre interview that sparked calls for his ban from boxing.
The heavyweight boxer, 27, made a number of derogatory comments about women and claimed “Zionist, Jewish people... own all the banks, all the papers, all the TV stations” in a rambling, 57-minute interview uploaded to YouTube last week.
He also made a series of disturbing remarks about rape, bestiality and paedophilia during his outburst.
Campaign Against Antisemitism condemned his comments and said it would submit a complaint to the British Boxing Board of Control.
In a statement on Tuesday, Fury denied being “a racist or a bigot” and asked for the public to accept his apology.
“I apologise to anyone who may have taken offence at any of my comments,“ he said. ”I said some things which may have hurt some people, which as a Christian man is not something I would ever want to do.
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“Though it is not an excuse, sometimes the heightened media scrutiny has caused me to act out in public. I mean no harm or disrespect to anyone and I know more is expected of me as an ambassador of British boxing, and I promise in future to hold myself up to the highest possible standard.
“Anyone who knows me personally knows that I am in no way a racist or bigot and I hope the public accept this apology.”
Fury has been criticised on a number of occasions for his comments on homosexuality and was the subject of a petition calling for his name to be retracted from the BBC Sports Personality of the Year nomination after comparing homosexuality to paedophilia and abortion in an interview with the Daily Mail.
