Tommy Martin: The haymaker that boxing’s paymasters can’t keep ducking

Of all the classical boxing styles, there can surely be none that require you to put your head in the sand, writes Tommy Martin

On Monday night Sky Sports News announced that its coverage of Transfer Deadline Day would be entirely carbon neutral. As part of the company’s commitment to the fight against climate change, presenters wore ‘pre-loved’ clothing and reporters cut down on carbon emissions by basing themselves at two regional hubs rather than travelling to every training ground. Even the pizzas ordered to studio were vegan.

It was part of Sky Sports’ ongoing focus on corporate responsibility, which has seen it take a lead on issues such as women in sport and the Black Lives Matter movement. This is a company that wants to do the right thing, or at least be seen to do so.

Sky is also a major broadcaster of professional boxing and over on BBC One on the same night as it boasted of its sustainability, its sense of corporate responsibility was being sorely tested.

Of all the classical boxing styles, there can surely be none that require you to put your head in the sand. Yet that was the preferred stance of so many involved in the sport as featured in the Panorama investigation into suspected crime boss Daniel Kinahan’s links with the sport.

The programme collated much of what was already known about the rise of MTK Global, the management company whose stable now boasts hundreds of top professional boxers and which Kinahan co-founded. Reporter Darragh McIntyre also gleaned an acknowledgement from MTK that Kinahan continued to ‘advise’ many of its fighters, despite previous claims that he had cut all ties with the company.

Kinahan has no criminal convictions but was named in the High Court in 2018 as a senior figure in an international crime organisation involved in the smuggling of drugs and weapons.

From promoters like Frank Warren, Eddie Hearn and Bob Arum to the countless fighters benefitting from Kinahan’s ‘advisory’ services, the sense was of ‘Dan’ as an ‘honourable’ broker bringing together the often fractured interests of professional boxing.

At best there was Hearn’s statement that amounted to a shrugging acceptance of Kinahan as a man one simply had to do business with.

“He is the guy leading this Tyson Fury ship,” said Hearn in relation to Kinahan’s involvement in the rehabilitation of the current WBC heavyweight champion.

“Everyone knows…that he represents a number of high profile boxers, [and] has represented Tyson Fury for a number of years.”

Fury has acted as a hulking great billboard for Kinahan’s role in the sport. It was his enthusiastic appreciation for “Dan” and his role in brokering a super-fight with Anthony Joshua that led to questions in both the Irish and British parliaments last June, and the subsequent announcement from MTK that Kinahan would no longer work as an adviser in the sport.

The Panorama investigation juxtaposed Kinahan’s role as a key fixer in boxing with the carnage unleashed on the streets of Dublin since the Kinahan-Hutch gang feud broke out in 2015. A statement from Kinahan released in advance of the programme denied the “false and damaging allegations repeated by various commentators and media outlets that he is the leader of an Irish-based international organised crime gang. These claims are wholly untrue and unsupported by any evidence.”

While the content of the Panorama report might have surprised many UK viewers, those within the sport can claim no such ignorance. Apologists for Kinahan’s involvement are quick to point out his innocence of any convictions. Others celebrate the positive impact he has had on the lives of many current and retired boxers, not least Fury, whose recovery from depression Kinahan reportedly helped.

For many within boxing, the money from MTK Global contracts has been a godsend. Boxers from deprived backgrounds have enthusiastically welcomed the infusion of cash and profile that the company has brought. Few have the inclination to query the company’s alleged connections with Kinahan, even if they cared. Some are quick to abuse those who do ask questions.

For promoters too, this is all good news. MTK has continued to snap up promising fighters on both sides of the Atlantic at a time when Covid-19 has brought sport to its knees. And for many boxing fans, getting a Fury-Joshua fight to actually happen, in a sport notorious for keeping its big guns apart, justifies any dealings that might be necessary.

Some simply point out that there have always been connections between boxing and the criminal underworld, invoking names like Blinky Palermo and Frankie Carbo and the sport’s mafia-controlled 1950s heyday. This argument seems to suggest that mob involvement in boxing is some sort of quirky tradition, an enduring part of the sport’s heritage.

There ends the discussion for many. But crime reporters such as Nicola Tallant and Stephen Breen, both of whom featured in Panorama, and the Irish Daily Star’s Chief Sports Writer Kieran Cunningham have persisted in asking awkward questions about the Kinahan cartel’s alleged relationship with MTK.

Cunningham sent a list of questions to MTK in November asking how it is financing its extraordinary expansion. He has received no answers as yet.

At the outset, Panorama pointed out that the lack of regulation in boxing lies at the heart of the murky relationships between fighters, management companies and promoters. On Tuesday the head of the British Boxing Board of Control said there was nothing they could do about Kinahan’s involvement, as the role of ‘adviser’ is not a licenced one.

But there is one part of the scene that is regulated. Sky Sports and BT Sport have heavily backed boxing in recent years and regularly showcase MTK fighters. Matthew Macklin, co-founder of MTK with Kinahan, is a Sky Sports boxing pundit. It is thought that Sky and BT will share the pay-per-view rights to Fury v Joshua in a deal unprecedented on UK soil.

It was these broadcasters that Leo Varadkar called on to boycott such a fight in the immediate outcry following Fury’s public lauding of Kinahan. It’s been reported that the controversy prompted concerned board meetings at both. It can be presumed that Fury and MTK’s subsequent public distancing of themselves from Kinahan was an effort to ease any reputational queasiness on the part of the broadcasters.

In the light of the Panorama investigation, it is incumbent on the broadcasters (and their US equivalents) to ask some questions themselves. Like Sky, BT publicly support many moral causes.

BT’s corporate code of practice promises to champion human rights and tackle climate change. Both are stiffly regulated in the UK by Ofcom.

Perhaps neither saw the Panorama punch coming. No wonder, if they have been keeping their heads in the sand.