Hearn told ESPN that a venue for the fights, in which Joshua's WBA, IBF and WBO titles and Fury's WBC belt will be on the line, is set to be confirmed "within the next month".

"The hard part is always getting everybody to put pen to paper," Hearn said, confirming the deal.

"But this was a major effort from all parties to get this over the line. You had rival promoters, rival networks and rival fighters.

"We've already had approaches from eight or nine sites. The offers have come from multiple countries in the Middle East, from Asia, Eastern Europe and America."

The deal is understood to represent a 50-50 split for the first fight, with the winner taking the larger 60 per cent share for a rematch.

Hearn's announcement comes just days after Fury insisted in an interview with iFL TV that the fight against Joshua was "nowhere near" being made.

Fury added that he had stopped training and was drinking up to 12 pints of lager a day.

"Until I've got a date and a load of money in my pocket, there's no fight," he said.

"There's a lot of things going on that people don't know behind the scenes that can scupper a fight like that. We're nowhere near at the moment.

"I've stopped training now, I'm on holiday. I'm doing anything between eight to 10 to 12 pints of lager a day at the minute - I'm not eating though, so I'm just getting my calories through alcohol."

Joshua eased past Kubrat Pulev in his last fight in December while Fury has not fought since his rematch win over Deontay Wilder over a year ago.

Australian Associated Press