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

It was just 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 bike has a little kick to it as these clouds need to escape for a while.

A simple word echoed in the hours after his Thursday afternoon departure on the Canary’s riverbank: ‘boxing’.

As in, this is boxing, the sport where anything can and will happen. Boxing, where logic so often fails. Boxing, where in and around some of the very best people, there will always be a home for the gross and horrible people.

And now there’s a new addition to the genre, which includes the shock of a drug test failure and the rather extraordinary efforts to keep the show going, through the use of lawyers and loopholes.

If the saga has anything to do with it, it’s that this sport will make any argument if a penny is involved.

At this point, you might even conclude that boxing is morally reprehensible. Good and real.

It remains to be seen what happens to Benn, and indeed whether there will be an indictment or a finding of guilt.

It should also be pointed out that we are not there. But what can be said is that this most dangerous sport is well past the time when something needs to be done about the way doping cases are handled.

No pursuit needs more regulation; no sport has proven itself so weak in its structures and protocols for such policing.

I spoke to Frank Warren about this topic this week. As he put it: “It is absolutely crucial that boxing takes control of the drug situation. It’s a dangerous sport – the British Boxing Board of Control needs to get a handle on it. They have a duty of care.’

And on that basis, we need clarity from that board with seemingly limited control.

Sports post made several unsuccessful attempts to reach Robert Smith, their general secretary, both before and after we broke the story of Benn’s positive test.

Some questions urgently need an answer. Why did the board of directors only announce on Wednesday that they would end the fight between Benn and Chris Eubank Jr. blocked, two hours after we published.

This despite the spread of the negative finding on September 23. What took so long? Why?

And from there, what message is being spread to a sport where so many of its champions, from Tyson Fury and below, have had 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 go on with so few caveats?

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

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