Eddie Hearn, Conor Benn and the poison at the heart of British boxing

E ddie Hearn and Conor Benn have been tested over the last eight months in ways the promoter describes as “unbelievable” and his boxer compares to a “witch hunt”. Yet they will soon intensify the controversy should Hearn announce Benn’s return to the ring in the Middle East. Benn’s comeback will happen despite the fact that he recorded two positive test results for clomifene, a banned substance which can boost testosterone by 50%, when he was preparing to face Chris Eubank Jr in a bout scheduled for last October.

Those results still hang over the fighter, who vehemently denies intentionally taking a prohibited substance. He insists that scientific proof has cleared him, yet Benn and his team have declined to share their 270-page report into the case with anyone apart from the World Boxing Council (WBC), the sanctioning body which ranks him in its list of top 10 welterweights. The WBC said there was no conclusive evidence that the 26-year-old had deliberately taken a banned drug, but disagreed with him, and the contents of the report, as to the reasons for the presence of clomifene in his system on two separate occasions.

Benn relinquished his British licence to box in late October but has been under investigation by UK Anti-Doping (Ukad). Should he find a jurisdiction outside of the UK that allows him to box, such a contest might imperil the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBoC) licence of any manager, trainer, promoter or other fighter who participates in the bout.

Hearn, meanwhile, voices belief in Benn. The two men seem defiant as the furore rages.

I have spoken to Hearn many times over the years and, last October, the Guardian ran my sympathetic interview with Benn two days before the clomifene story broke. In