THE British Boxing Board of Control will decide in a meeting on October 12 whether they will withdraw Tyson Fury's licence.
Fury, the WBO and WBA heavyweight champion, was previously scheduled to earn the biggest purse of his career in a rematch with Wladimir Klitschko on October 29.
After what has perhaps been the most damaging fortnight of his career, he could instead face a lengthier period out of the ring.
In a dark interview with Rolling Stone, Fury appeared to confirm reports he had tested positive for cocaine by discussing using "lots of" the drug. He also said he was uncertain if he will "see the year out".
The publication say the interview took place on Monday after he took to Twitter to announce his retirement but before he back-tracked just three hours later. Five days previously it was reported he had tested positive for cocaine.
On September 30, Fury withdrew from the Klitschko rematch - having already postponed it citing an ankle injury - when a statement from his manager Mick Hennessy explained he was "medically unfit" to fight. He is also scheduled to attend a hearing in November for an alleged doping violation.
In 2010 the BBBofC withdrew the inactive Ricky Hatton's boxer's licence amid allegations of cocaine use, and asked of their plans for Fury, general secretary Robert Smith said: "The meeting won't be for Tyson Fury alone. We have a meeting on October 12. All of Mr Fury's recent issues will be discussed at that point, after which we'll see what we're going to do.
"He is licenced by us. The sanctioning bodies, the WBO, WBA - they are not governing bodies - they can strip him, declare the titles vacant, or he can vacate them.
"We deal with the licence, so in theory, if we were to suspend him they would have no choice but to strip him because he can't defend them, can he?
"There are a number of issues with Mr Fury that need to be considered, that have been well-publicised. We've had other issues this weekend that have been more important than Tyson Fury [such as the death of fighter Mike Towell].
"Cocaine is against the law of the land. We can't ignore the law of the land. It's drug use and we will deal with it accordingly.
"You can't just take a man's licence away, without taking the proper procedures, if we decide that's the right thing to do."
Fury had told Rolling Stone: "Listen, I've done a lot of things in my life. I've done lots of cocaine. Lots of it.
"Why shouldn't I take cocaine? It's my life isn't it? I can do what I want. Yeah, I have done cocaine. Plenty of people have done cocaine as well.
"I've not been in a gym for months. I've not been training. I've been going through depression. I just don't want to live any more, if you know what I'm saying. I've had total enough of it.
"I'm in a very bad place at the moment. I don't know whether I'm coming or going. I don't know what's going to happen to me. I don't know if I'm going to see the year out, to be honest."
Yesterday, promoter Eddie Hearn urged Fury get the help he needed to return to health and the boxing ring and to stay off social media.
One of Hearn's fighters, Anthony Joshua, is in line to take on Wladimir Klitschko, but the Matchroom boss believes the sport would benefit from Fury recovering and getting back to world-title fights.
"I think Klitschko versus Joshua is the likely choice for the next fight but there is still a lot of work to do," Hearn said as he promoted Ricky Burns' world title defence in Glasgow.
"Obviously you've got the Tyson Fury situation with the belts. I believe he will be stripped.
"We hope he gets the right help and I want him to return to boxing, everybody does. I want Anthony Joshua to fight Tyson Fury.
"He is coming off one of the best wins from a British fighter nearly of all-time. So we want him back in the sport but I don't want him bringing the sport into disrepute either.
"It feels like to me someone needs to get hold of his Twitter account and just suspend it, because it's not helping."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here