ANTHONY JOSHUA doesn’t believe the six month ban received by Jarrell Miller by the WBA sends a strong enough message about doping in the sport of boxing.

The British WBO, IBF and WBA heavyweight champion was set to take on the American boxer on June 1 at Madison Square Garden before the challenger failed a drug test.

With five of the top ten ranked fighters having served a ban for doping, any deterrent that is supposed to be in place to put boxers off making such ill advised decisions, doesn’t seem to be working.

“These are top guys,” Joshua said. “How are they getting to the top? When you look down the list at everyone who has had it, how have they got to the top? It’s out of control but it is not taken so seriously by those in charge.

“Like racism in football, that’s happening but [is] not taken so seriously.

“Fury had his issues as well. He’s fighting again and it’s forgotten about. Maybe it will take something serious to happen. A death? I don’t know. But something serious.”

Like most people connected to the sport Joshua said it was time to introduce stiffer punishments for those who partake in such activity.

FEAR

“Rather than it being guys sitting down at the WBA and saying, ‘What shall we give him? Let’s say six months’, it would be better to know if whatever he was on, that is, say, a lifetime ban,” he said.

“Now the next person who uses human growth hormone thinks it’s a six-month ban. “I haven’t fought in nine months.

I could have taken human growth hormone after [the] Povetkin [fight], got caught, taken six months out and still fight in June. It doesn’t put fear into fighters.”