Barry Hearn, founder and chairman of Matchroom Sport, discussed the selection of Saudi Arabia as the event location for the heavyweight rematch between Andy Ruiz and Anthony Joshua.

Two weeks ago, Barry's son, Eddie Hearn, held a press conference in London and officially announced the location of the rematch.

The decision has been met with heavy criticism, due to numerous human rights issues in the country and last year's murder of a reporter from the Washington Post.

It didn't take long before Ruiz and his handlers went public - voicing their refusal to travel to Saudi Arabia for the fight.

Ruiz, who stopped Joshua in seven rounds June to capture the WBO, IBF, IBO, WBA world titles, wants the rematch to happen in the United States.

Barry Hearn, who works with Joshua, does not see a problem with Saudi Arabia being tabbed as the fight location.

“As far as the political and cultural side of Saudi [Arabia], yes, I was expecting some backlash on that because there are people out there, and quite rightly, defending the rights of individuals across the world across many different member states that abuse power or create criminal acts, whatever," Barry Hearn explained to Gareth Davies on talkSPORT’s Fight Night.

“I’m not justifying it at all, but what I’m seeing now is change – gradual change. 100 years ago in our country, we would have done things we weren’t proud of, but things change and sport can help things change. It’s the long haul, but the alternative is just to cut people off.

“I spent some time talking to Keith Penny of the PGA European Tour, he’s a very sensible young man, and because he took a European tour there and had similar sorts of things like ‘how can you do this in a country that does these sorts of things’ and such. Keith’s answer – and I think my answer – is look, his responsibility is to his members to spread the game as globally as possible. I take exactly the same view in all the sports I deal in. The overall consideration is the world of sport. Politics being politics, I’m sure there’s things all over the world that I could take offense with, but I just focus on spreading the gospel of sport and make sure my clients are well rewarded for their activities in their chosen sport.

“I just have to hold my hands up and say ‘sorry, there’s a bigger picture here’. Sport is business and the day you take your eye off sport being business is the day sport goes backwards. And we talked earlier about the cricket and the golf and the tennis where the investment is not being made, same thing applies with boxing. What we’ve done with boxing over the last five years and, in particular, hats off to my son. I don’t take any credit for it.

“We’ve inspired a whole generation of young people to be boxers and make the sacrifices they need to in order to be as good as they can possibly be – and they deserve the rewards. You can’t do that and just give them a medal or a cup or a belt – you’ve got to give them money so their life changes because of the risk they take and the level of dedication they put in.

“So the fan side? I can shrug my shoulders and say don’t worry, hopefully you’ll be back again in the future but we’re a global sport, and as such, we have a global audience to cater for.”