Tyson Fury vs Dillian Whyte officially ordered by WBC, meaning ‘Gypsy King’ must fight Whyte next or vacate his heavyweight world title

The WBC have now officially ordered Tyson Fury to defend his heavyweight world title against Dillian Whyte next.

The parties are currently in the free negotiations period and have 30 days to agree a deal or purse bids will be called.

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Following his trilogy triumph over Deontay Wilder on October 9, the WBC put out a ruling about what would come next for the ‘Gypsy King’.

The sanctioning body stated that they would give Fury 30 days to try and agree an undisputed title fight with Oleksandr Usyk, or he must defend against their ‘interim’ belt-holder, which is Whyte.

However, Anthony Joshua triggered his contractual clause to force a rematch with the Ukrainian who beat him in September.

When Fury’s 30-day deadline passed without an agreement to fight Usyk, the WBC did not immediately order the Whyte fight due to the challenger's ongoing arbitration dispute against them.

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However, they have now done so and first reported that both parties were notified of the order on Tuesday.

The WBC have tweeted to confirm this.

Their statement read: "The WBC hereby orders the start of the free negotiations period pursuant to the WBC rules and regulations for the mandatory bout between WBC world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury and mandatory challenger and WBC 'interim' world champion Dillian Whyte."

The ‘Gypsy King’ will now have the option to either defend his title or vacate the WBC belt. However, it appears as though Fury will welcome the challenge.

His assistant trainer Andy Lee told talkSPORT about his recent conversation with Fury: “I said, ‘What do you do? Do you retire, do you hang them up?’

“He said, ‘Well, I’m thinking that way.’ And then he said, ‘On the other hand, what else am I going to do with my life?’

“He loves to train, he loves to fight and although there are no challenges out there for him, he can still take a lot of pleasure in cleaning out the division and beating up these other guys and also earn a hell of a lot of money while doing it.

“He likes the Dillian Whyte fight; he is enthused by that, that’s what he is talking about to me so I can see that being the next one.”