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| - Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar on Thursday said he was shocked at the apparent involvement of an alleged gangland figure in brokering a boxing face-off between British world heavyweight champions Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury. WBA, IBF and WBO belt holder Joshua and Fury, who holds the WBC belt, have agreed in principle to meet in two blockbuster fights to determine the undisputed heavyweight champion. Joshua's promoter Eddie Hearn said the first bout could happen in the summer of 2021. Fury on Wednesday thanked Daniel Kinahan, an Irishman, for getting the deal "over the line". "He's just informed me that the biggest fight in British boxing history has just been agreed," Fury said in a video message shared on his social media channels. Namechecking Kinahan multiple times, he said: "Big shout out Dan -- he got this done." In parliament on Thursday, lawmaker Alan Kelly said the country's High Court had identified Kinahan as "a very senior figure in organised crime on a global scale". The Criminal Assets Bureau had also said he had "controlled and managed the operations of the Kinahan organised crime group for some time", he added. "Our country has to intervene with the United Arab Emirates... in respect of this individual. We owe it to the victims of that cartel," Kelly told Varadkar. Kinahan is understood to be currently living in Dubai. Varadkar responded: "I do not want to say too much about it but I was rather taken aback to see Tyson Fury in his video the other day just dropping in the name of that person... as if he was not a person with a chequered history in this state and elsewhere." Foreign ministry officials had contacted authorities in the United Arab Emirates about Kinahan, he added. jts/phz/jw/lp
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