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Tyson Fury facing calls for boxing ban after disturbing anti-semitic and sexist comments

Campaign Against Antisemitism says Fury 'specialises in outrageous, offensive and racial slurs'

Heather Saul
Saturday 14 May 2016 14:38 BST
Tyson Fury speaks at a press conference to announce the venue of his rematch with Wladimir Klitschko
Tyson Fury speaks at a press conference to announce the venue of his rematch with Wladimir Klitschko (Getty)

Tyson Fury is facing calls for him to be banned from boxing over a series of sexist and anti-Semitic comments he made during an interview from his training camp.

In a bizarre interview uploaded to YouTube, the British heavyweight boxer claimed “Zionist, Jewish people... own all the banks, all the papers, all the TV stations”.

In comments about women, he went on: “We live in ancient times where we don’t like women to be whores, opening legs to every Tom, Dick and Harry. We don’t s**g men. We don’t s**g kids. So, if that’s draconian then yeah, I suppose I like being a draconian [sic]. They should call me Dracula Fury shouldn’t they.“

He continued: “I think it’ll be perfectly normal in the next 10 years to have sexual relationships with your animals at home, you know your pets your cats and dogs and all that. So that will be legal.”

He also made a series of disturbing comments about rape, bestiality and paedophilia.

The charity Campaign Against Antisemitism said it is submitting a complaint to the British Boxing Board of Control.

“This is not his first offence, he specialises in outrageous, offensive and racist slurs,” said CAA spokesman Jonathan Sacerdoti.

“Behaviour like this should prompt his sponsors to withdraw their backing. Britain does not tolerate or support racism.

”These specific anti-semitic slurs are centuries old, and his use of them today in 2016 shows ignorance and malice."

Fury then made another anti-semitic comment on Twitter before attempting to defend his tirade by claiming his rant was directed at the “Zionist media”, not the Jewish community.

Fury 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 in an interview.

The British Boxing Board of Control was not available for comment.

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