WITH each passing year the BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY) seems to fade in significance both as an award and event. Perhaps this is symptomatic of the BBC’s fading relevance overall, or perhaps not, but there’s no arguing that where once the BBC SPOTY was a must-watch annual event, now it is not. 

For the past couple of years it has been entwined in an unrequited embrace with Tyson Fury — the WBC and Ring Magazine heavyweight king making it abundantly clear that he wants no part of the BBC SPOTY and even going as far as to threaten to sue the BBC if his name makes its way onto the shortlist for the 2021 award. Regardless, on the shortlist for the 2021 award his name has been put, alongside Tom Daley, Adam Peaty, Emma Raducanu, Raheem Sterling, and Paralympian Sarah Storey.

Fury has neither forgotten nor forgiven the BBC over his one and only appearance on the show. This was back in 2016 for the 2015 BBC SPOTY. A petition protesting over his appearance attracted 140,000 signatures and was drawn up in response to unsavoury remarks made by the heavyweight champion on the subjects of homosexuality and women in various interviews after his stunning victory over Wladimir Klitschko in Germany in the summer of 2015. That Fury sought to ascribe biblical authority to said remarks didn’t help his cause either.