The SJA said: “We are aware of threats made by Tyson Fury against one of our members, and therefore feel that it would be incompatible with the nature of our event, or the interests of our members, our other guests and our sponsors, for us to continue to extend a welcome to Tyson Fury to our awards.”

Far be it from me to defend Tyson Fury. He is big enough and ugly enough to do that for himself.

But I think they are bang out of order in climbing aboard the anti-Fury bandwagon and I am surprised that some of my colleagues should take such a precious stance. 

The threat in question was a warning from Fury that one of his mates would sort out and "jump on the head" of Mail on Sunday sports columnist Oliver Holt who first reported the extreme views on homosexuality, abortion and paedophilia which have caused so much outrage since Fury spooked and dethroned Wladimir Klitschko.

Fury claims these were made in jest, and I suspect he’s right, though in the circumstances I feel fortunate that he only told me to "eff-off" when I once remonstrated him for the foul language he was using before an audience which included women and young children.

We haven’t spoken since but I would like to think I am professional enough to report his boxing triumphs without prejudice, attend his media conferences and even share a table with him in the cause of journalistic duty. It is not the job of we scribes to throw a hissy fit. Rather we should be promoting not only free speech but the freedom of choice. 

So, the Fury furore rages on. Tyson’s toxic tongue has been the subject of angry debate by a posse of politicians, pundits and petitioners - even the PM was asked to get involved but sensibly declined.

Now we await Sunday night in Belfast where no doubt there will be nervous twitches among the suits when the vote for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY) is revealed as, quite rightly, the wayward gypsy giant has remained on their short-list despite a 140,000-strong petition demanding otherwise.

Beeb bosses will be praying that sport’s loosest cannon won’t be tempted to spout more profanities or deliver sexist sermons in the name of his Lord. Anxious fingers will be poised over the bleep button.

Although initially established as third favourite behind Andy Murray and Jessica Ennis-Hill,  Fury’s odds have lengthened, albeit marginally. For the bookies are shrewd enough to recognise that he may well garner more votes than people think because the fan-in-the-street can be pretty perverse these days, especially the younger element among the populace.

You need look no further than the rebellious "yoof" support for the new oddball Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

Sometimes they seem to like what they perceive as a bit of laddishness, although the oldies among us may consider it more like loutishness.

I agree with the promoter Frank Warren who, on a BBC News programme, made it clear he offered no excuse for Fury’s noxious views and religious ranting but argued that the public are not daft and would make up their own minds about his worthiness or otherwise to be considered for the award.

Moreover, he pointed out that several SPOTY winners are flawed as so-called role models, whatever that phrase might mean.

Remember that Muhammad Ali was voted Sports Personality of the Century by BBC viewers; but if you hark back to some of the more outrageous things he  said in his early years as champion about blacks staying with blacks and whites with whites, and that the white man is a devil, that would be deemed racist and utterly abhorrent today.

Yet he went on to become the best loved sports figure of all time.

As Warren says there is no excuse for Fury’s more odious outpourings and misrepresentation of certain passages in the Bible he says he lives by.

But the BBC are right not to bow to the anti-Fury hysteria of the self-righteous PC brigade and remove him from the short-list of candidates. Let the public be the judge.

Fury isn’t the first boxer, or indeed sportsman, to be on that list who has said or done stupid things. Among those who’ve actually won it you’ve had Linford Christie, a drugs cheat, Ryan Giggs and his extra-marital affairs, Gazza (Paul Gascoigne), an alcoholic, Joe Calzaghe, who later admitted snorting cocaine, and Freddie Flintoff, who famously peed over the Downing Street lawn.

Even cycling hero Tommy Simpson, SPOTY winner in 1965, the first Brit to win the Tour de France, was found to have drugs and alcohol in his system when he subsequently collapsed and died during another Tour two years later.

Hardly paragons of virtue, but at the time they were all perceived as "role models".

Now we’ve had Kellie, née Frank, Maloney coming out, as it were, to condemn Tyson, yet a few years ago he was saying some very similar things when he made that ridiculous bid to become Mayor of London.

Some of his utterances were at least as bad as those attributed to Fury. But all has been forgiven because of who he is now and what he has become – not least a Guardian reader!

But I just think that the public’s intelligence is being underestimated and we might well get a bit of a surprise on Sunday night.

Fury’s mistake is to keep feeding the frenzy. It might be time to keep the wayward tongue that he says is often in his cheek, firmly bitten between his teeth.

Especially when the mic is thrust in front of him in Belfast on Sunday night - if he turns up! No doubt they will nervously keep the bleep button handy.

I had to laugh when Fury was even the subject of a debate on Question Time last week and Quentin Letts, the quirky Daily Mail columnist, suggested the reason he should be kept on the twelve-strong shortlist was to see the possible punch-up between him and right-on co-host Clare Balding.

Absolutely, though wasn’t it the same high-horsed Balding who once described boxing as being "dirty and corrupt". A bit thick that when you consider the sporting world she comes from!

I can’t think of any British boxer who has faced criminal charges for throwing a fight but how many jockeys and trainers have been fined, suspended and even jailed for fixing races, eh Clare?

Believe me, there are more pulled horses in horse racing than there have ever been pulled punches in boxing.

But if La Balding draws the short straw for his cross-examination – there is said to be reluctance among her fellow interviewers to tackle this task –  the admittedly sexist and allegedly homophobic slugger had better be prepared to duck if, as he suggested about fellow contender Jess Ennis-Hill, he tells her she "slaps up well".

He’ll discover the openly gay Balding throws a far meaner left hook than Wladimir Klitschko.