‘It’s absolutely rife’ – Simon Jordan reacts to Amir Khan’s drugs ban in wake of Kell Brook defeat and says, ‘It didn’t do him any good, did it?’
Simon Jordan has given a strong reaction to the news that Amir Khan has been given a two-year drugs ban by UKAD.
The talkSPORT host is very passionate about the issue and has not held back with his views on other such scandals in boxing recently, most notably the Conor Benn situation.
UKAD announced completely out of the blue on Tuesday morning that Khan had been banned from all sport for two years following a positive drugs test for the banned substance ostarine which was taken on February 19, 2022, immediately after his stoppage defeat to Kell Brook.
According to UKAD, ostarine is a drug designed to have similar effects to testosterone. Dietary supplements containing ostarine typically claim to promote muscle building, though ostarine itself is not approved for human consumption.
Khan was informed of the positive test on April 6, 2022 and charged with anti-doping rule violations on July 20, 2022.
In the months that have followed, an investigation has taken place into the matter with the case referred to the National Anti-Doping Panel to be considered by an independent tribunal.
Khan has insisted that he did not intentionally ingest ostarine and suggested the most probable explanation is “contamination of a supplement or incidental contact with another person”.
The tribunal ultimately accepted this for a variety of reasons mainly centring around the fact that Khan had a ‘very small’ amount of ostarine in his system and tested negative on February 12, 2022, just a week prior to his positive test on fight night.
Their ruling stated: “The objective scientific evidence rules out any deliberate or reckless conduct by the athlete. It is inconceivable that he would have sought to ingest a micro-dose which would have been a fraction, at least a 1,000 times less, of a dose intended to provide any performance enhancement or any other competitive advantage.”
However, Khan has been given a two-year ban regardless due to UKAD’s strict liability principle which holds athletes solely responsible for whatever is found within their systems, with the fact his violation was ruled unintentional merely reducing the ban from four years to two.
In reaction to the ruling, Khan told Sky Sports on Tuesday: “I’ve never cheated. You could see by my performance against Kell Brook. I lost the fight. If I went in there and knocked Kell Brook out it’s different.
“I’ve never cheated in my life. I’m the one who wanted the testing on the fight. Also, the amount that was in my system could’ve been by shaking people’s hands.
“I am a retired fighter, so I’ve got a two-year ban now which is quite strange and funny that they’ve banned me. I’m already retired anyway.”
Jordan gave his thoughts on White and Jordan an hour after the news broke.
“There’s a part of me that says this is the last thing boxing needs, and there’s another part of me that says it’s the absolute real thing that boxing needs,” the talkSPORT host said.
“Because it’s absolutely rife in this sport
“There’s allegations of lack of professionalism and lack of process.
“I speak to really big sports journalists sometimes and say, ‘Why don’t you write more stories about boxing?’
“[They say], ‘Because it’s a crappy world full of rotten people that don’t operate in the right way. And it’s so murky and bad that we don’t even wanna write about it, it’s so ridiculous.’
“But the more it gets this kind of focus, the more there’s gonna have to be perhaps a professionalisation of the business.”
Jordan added further thoughts on Khan’s positive test as he said: “Well look, it didn’t do him any good, did it?
“Because he wasn’t in that fight from the first bell to when it was stopped.
“The actual effects of it didn’t do him any good, but that’s irrelevant…
“If he tested post-fight with this drug in his system, then it was in his system when he was fighting.
“So that then takes you into the territory of a tainted fight.”
They are all blaming it on the original Rocky film.