There was an element of surprise on Tuesday when the notification came through from UK Anti-Doping that Amir Khan had been banned for doping. The shock wasn’t because a prominent fighter had been found with drugs in his system — that is common enough. It’s what we’ve come to expect from a sport that doesn’t give much of a damn. But the progression from finding to sanction and the testing agency that administered it? That was less typical.
The point here is about the price of fish and the effort it takes to catch one. A mackerel isn’t so tough — you can pull in five at a time on a multi-hook line off most British beaches. But a shark? You have to go further afield. You have to work harder and use greater resources. You have to fight for one of those and you might get bitten. You have to really want to get the shark.
So what you need to understand about UKAD, notionally our line of defence in these matters of drugs and cheats, is they seem to favour mackerel. If we look at the sanctioning list on their website, it shows 39 athletes currently serving a ban. Of them, 12 play rugby league. They are guys like Rob Oakley, who played a few games for London Broncos in the second tier. And Russell Spiers, Midlands Hurricanes. Third tier.
They were sanctioned a week apart last month and there was no great risk of a killer bite if the cases took a wrong turn — to go by the estimates from an agent in that area, the average second-tier player might earn £30,000 a year. In the third, more like £15,000. Mackerels.
That is what makes Khan’s two-year ban quite interesting, because he earned about £5million on the night of February 19, 2022, when he lost to Kell Brook and then gave a post-fight sample that was positive for ostarine. Pay of that scale makes Khan a shark. Just like Conor Benn is a shark, which we will revisit shortly. You lose to a shark and the damage can be severe, especially when you have a budget of £11m a year to cover all sports and sharks have expensive lawyers. So give something to UKAD — for the first time in a long while they issued a sanction to a well-known name.
Amir Khan was banned for two years by UKAD after a positive drug test following his loss to Kell Brook
But my problem with that case is the timeline and Khan’s circumstances. UKAD documentation shows he was notified on April 6 last year, Khan announced his retirement, to praise, five weeks later, while this was still all quiet, and 14 months had eventually passed between the sample being collected and his ban being made public. The policing of doping, and the defence lawyers it attracts, requires the examination of complicated science. It becomes rife with obfuscation and nonsense and eggs and contaminated handshakes, so it is time-consuming and hard. But 14 months?
That might just about work with a retired fighter. And no doubt Khan can live with it, especially as my understanding is he has not been asked to pay back his purse, which is not the obligatory process it would be in sensible sports. But what would a similar timeline mean if they were weighing the case of someone active? Someone like Benn. This is when we look to UKAD again and with the added question of whether they are fit for purpose, because that is what they must prove.
In other words, they need to show an appetite for shark. A live one. And they need to show it quickly.
If whispers are accurate, Eddie Hearn will confirm in the near future that the fight between Benn and Chris Eubank Jnr is on. Not with a British Boxing Board of Control licence in Benn’s pocket, because they want a resolution to the inconvenient truth of Benn’s two failed drugs tests, first revealed in the Daily Mail six months ago. But it will happen, most likely on June 3 in Abu Dhabi, and what a dangerous shambling mess that would be.
But most of Khan’s contemporaries on UKAD’s banned list are relative minnows in sporting terms
And that is where UKAD and their appetite come into it. They were not the testing authority who twice found clomifene in Benn’s system — that was the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association, which thereby introduced more loopholes for resourceful lawyers and a promoter in Hearn who famously sang VADA’s praises when it suited him, but is now dancing in the grey areas of conflicting jurisdictions.
Where UKAD need to stiffen their spine is staking their claim to a case that occurred in this country. On their turf. On their watch. And it is our understanding that they do have the power to be involved and rule in a meaningful way.
To date, what co-operation has that yielded between Benn and investigators, with the thorny topic bemoaned as an obstacle by the British Boxing Board of Control? I was told by Benn’s team on Saturday they have been in ‘correspondence’ with UKAD.
Eddie Hearn is believed to be eyeing Abu Dhabi as a potential stage for Conor Benn vs Chris Eubank Jnr
My next question of whether that includes the sharing of the same 270-page file of information they gave to the softer touches at the World Boxing Council went unanswered. Benn put that down to pride in his recent interview with Piers Morgan. Obstruction is the suspicion of others in the business of watching these tales unfold. But where is UKAD’s pride?
They need to show it in pursuing this matter, whether that means establishing Benn’s claim to innocence or his guilt. They need to do it before he finds his way to another ring via some creative paperwork.
What they must not do is sit by idly and let it go away, as seemingly happened when this newspaper brought them the extraordinary claims in 2020 of a farmer who alleged he had been bribed into giving Tyson Fury a boar-based alibi for doping a few years earlier. Fury’s promoter Frank Warren denied it, UKAD investigated, the Mail on Sunday provided information to their efforts, but only silence has followed.
UKAD must stake a claim to the case surrounding Benn’s failed VADA test in October that nixed the originally-scheduled bout
It is essential UKAD have the stomach for a fight. In this country we have a tendency to sneer at nations with dodgy records in this area. Russia and Kenya come to mind.
It isn’t state-sponsored here, as it was in Russia, and it isn’t so prolific, as it is in Kenyan distance running. But goodness, does a problem exist, especially in boxing, and that is why the credibility of British sport is on the line.
This is a high-profile case and one that has reeked of cover-up and scandal, and it must not be allowed by UKAD to fall between the cracks of jurisdictions. They need to show they are serious. They need to show they can match Benn’s lawyer Mike Morgan, with whom they have an interesting history and which might well deserve a column of its own.
They need to show they are not petrified of sharks.
