Conor Benn’s failed drugs test ahead of Chris Eubank Jr fight is another sorry stain for boxing

It was a little after 2pm that Conor Benn left his hotel in Canary Wharf, loaded some luggage into his Rolls-Royce and drove away from a storm. Just as well his motor has a bit of kick because these clouds will take some escaping.

One simple word reverberated at the Canary Riverside in the hours after his exit on Thursday afternoon – ‘boxing’.

As in, this is boxing, the sport where anything can and will happen. Boxing, where logic so often goes to die. Boxing, where in and around some of the very finest of people, there will always be a home for the crass and appalling.

Benn tested positive for banned substance clomifene in the build-up to the mega-fight

Eubank Jr and Benn square off at a press conference in the build-up to the fight back in August

And now there is a new addition to the genre, encompassing the shock of a failed drugs test and the quite extraordinary attempts to keep the show on the road, via the use of lawyers and loopholes.

If the saga enforces anything, it is that any argument will be put forward by this sport if there is a buck involved.

By this point, you might even conclude boxing is morally bucked. Well and truly.

It remains to be seen what happens with Benn, and indeed if any charge is forthcoming or guilt established.

It should also be pointed out that we aren’t at that place. But what can be said is this most dangerous of sports is well past the juncture where something needs to be done about how its doping cases are handled.

Sportsmail’s Riath Al-Samarrai broke the exclusive of Benn’s positive drugs test on Wednesday

No pursuit is in need of greater regulation; no sport has proven itself so flimsy in its structures and protocols for such policing.

I spoke this week with Frank Warren on the subject. As he put it: ‘It’s absolutely critical that boxing gets control of the drugs situation. It is a dangerous sport – the British Boxing Board of Control need to get a grip on it. They have a duty of care.’ 

And on that basis, we need clarity from that Board of seemingly limited control.

Sportsmail has made multiple attempts with no success to reach Robert Smith, their general secretary, both before and after we broke the story of Benn’s positive test.

Some questions need urgent answers. Why did the Board only announce they were blocking the bout between Benn and Chris Eubank Jnr on Wednesday, two hours after we published.

Frank Warren says ‘it’s absolutely critical that boxing gets control of the drugs situation’

That despite notification spreading of the adverse finding on September 23. What took so long? Why?

And from there what message is spread to a sport where so many of its champions, from Tyson Fury and down, have served doping suspensions?

Fury will always be an interesting case on this topic. Because in how many other sports would a man with a doping suspension to his name proceed with so few caveats?

A man whose explanation for a positive test is the subject of an ongoing investigation by the UK Anti-Doping Agency.

Does boxing even care about the kinds of stain that would be immovable in most other sports? There is little evidence to support such a view. Evidence of the consequences of such attitudes is far easier to find.

Tyson Fury has served a doping suspension in the past but is now WBC heavyweight champion