THE BBC came under renewed pressure last night after a petition to remove boxer Tyson Fury from the Sports Personality of the Year shortlist topped 36,000 names.

The heavyweight champion was named as a contender for the annual award alongside Andy Murray, Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis-Hill after defeating Wladimir Klitschko last month, ending the Ukrainian fighter’s nine-year reign as the world’s best.

However, the nomination of Lancashire-born Fury sparked public outcry in the wake of his anti-gay remarks.

Now more than 36,000 people have signed a petition on the change.org site in just three days calling on the BBC to remove him from the list.

Petition founder Scott Cuthbertson, development manager at Edinburgh campaign group Equality Network, told The National the broadcaster will have to “take a long, hard look at its public service responsibilities” if it fails to act.

Cuthbertson said: “It is a public body, it has a legal duty to ensure that equality and the needs of diverse groups are met by what it delivers.

“This award puts people up as a role model. If they’re doing that, they better make damn sure that role model is suitable, that they are not going to alienate people and, more importantly, they are not going to put a message out to LGBT young people that it is is OK that they are being bullied because they are who they are.

“I would like nothing more than for them to remove him from the list, but they have not said anything or done anything that makes me think they are going to do it.”

The controversy started after Fury, a Christian, compared homosexuality to paedophilia, saying: “There are only three things that need to be accomplished before the devil comes home – one of them is homosexuality being legal in countries, one of them is abortion and the other one’s paedophilia. Who would have thought in the 50s and 60s that those first two would be legalised?

“When I say paedophiles could be made legal, it sounds crazy. But if I had said to you about the first two being made legal in the 50s, I would have been looked upon as a crazy man. People can say: ‘You are against abortions, you are against paedophilia, you are against homosexuality’, but my faith and my culture is based on the Bible.”

According to Cuthbertson, the BBC have responded to the petition, saying: “The nominees for BBC Sports Personality of the Year are decided on their sporting achievements.

“As Fury became heavyweight champion of the world over the weekend, the panel feel that he should be a contender for this year’s award.”

However, Cuthbertson said: “I’m not a BBC-basher and I’m getting a lot of flack from boxing fans on Twitter, but the BBC have done wrong here.

“This is not a sports excellence award, it’s a personality award. Tyson Fury should not be put up as a role model.”

John Nicolson MP, a former BBC presenter who came out while working for the broadcaster, said it has a duty to withdraw the nomination.

He said: “The BBC is not good at saying ‘we got something wrong’.

“Sport is one of the last bastions of homophobia. We have a remarkably small number of sports stars who have come out.

“Had Tyson Fury expressed a similar sort of view about black people, for example, I doubt that the BBC would have gone ahead with this nomination. Is the BBC saying homophobia is more acceptable than racism?”

He added: “The largest group of teenage suicide victims are young gay men. To have somebody who expressed those views elevated to the position of a role model by an organisation like the BBC will, to the vulnerable, appear to be an endorsement of those views.”

The winner will be announced in Belfast on December 20.