"It's all misquotes, it's newspapers trying to sell papers on writing bad things about me. I don't have any hate for anybody. I'm not homophobic, I ain't a racist, I'm not against any people."
That was new heavyweight champion Tyson Fury's claim this morning in the final seconds of an interview with Today with Sean O'Rourke relating to a religiously-tinged homophobic rant in a Mail on Sunday interview with the paper's chief sports writer Oliver Holt published last month.
Tonight on Off The Ball, Holt joined us to respond to Fury's suggestion that his words at the time were misquoted in some way.
"One hundred per cent he was not misquoted," he said of Fury's claims, describing parts of the interview as "unsettling" and described the setting and context.
"It was a very interesting interview. I enjoyed it but I also found it unsettling."
Holt also made another relevant point about Fury.
"One thing that is worth pointing out is that he has said similar things before and he has said similar things since I did that interview about homosexuality and paedophilia. As you say, he's rowing back now and I'm glad he's rowing back now. He's a heavyweight champion of the world and if he realises that he has a much greater responsibility now, then that's great."
Fury also spoke about his comments in this interview with iFL TV:
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