Speaker our own John Waterhouse

Azeem Rafiq versus Yorkshire County Cricket Club

John explained that as Chairman of Emerald Publishing he had to get to understand this dispute and eventually Emerald asked for their name to be removed from the stadium at Yorkshire County Cricket Club (YCC).

Azeem Rafiq was born 1991 in Karachi Pakistan. He came to UK in 2001 and played cricket for Barnsley Cricket Club. His talent was noticed by YCCC and became a member of the academy. In 2006 he became captain of under 15 side for England and he played his first match for the second team in 2008. In 2009 he made his debut for the YCCC first team and the England under 19’s touring South Africa, Bangladesh and New Zealand.

He broke the curfew on the New Zealand tour and was suspended for vitriolic tweets half way through the tour. He became Yorkshire youngest captain in June 2012. He was injured in 2014 and was close to signing for Derbyshire but Gale pulled him back into team and he remained at the club.

In 2018 he was let go with YCCC citing budget constraints. In 2020 he made claims of deep rooted racism at YCCC which left him suicidal. Yorkshire appointed a committee to investigate and a firm of solicitors (Squire Patton Boggs) were appointed to deal with this. But Roger Hutton (chairman Yorkshire) was a partner there which tainted the appointment. In December 2020 he filed a claim for racial abuse. YCCC said their report would be issued early in 2021 but then claimed there were delays due to not getting a response back from Rafiq’s team. The report was finally issued in September 2021 and 7 complaints were upheld but the other 36 were rejected. 

Yorkshire refused to make this report public as they said it contained confidential information. In November 2021 a Digital, Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS) Parliamentary Select Committee was convened. This committee found Yorkshire guilty of racism. The ECB wanted time to consider the report but was not given time as it was leaked to press. The DCMS hearing was held subject Parliamentary privilege.

Following this Hutton resigned, and Lord Patel took over as chairman of YCCC. Lots of other employees of the club resigned including Mark Arthur the CEO. Shortly after this Rafiq admitted to making antisemitic statements in 2011 which was the same time that he was claiming racist comments against him. He apologised profusely for this, and no further action was taken.

Lord Patel settled his claims for £200k without a non-disclosure agreement. The 16 people fired by Lord Patel all claimed unfair dismissal and most won. DCMS asked what the ECB were doing and threaten to give no more money to cricket unless the matter was sorted. Yorkshire were charged with bringing game into disrepute and they suspended YCCC from being able to hold International Matches. 

Rafiq insisted that a meeting to investigate the matter be held in public or would not attend. This is unusual as such meetings are normally held in private. Lord Patel then resigned in December 2022 effective March 2023  claiming ECB not given any help to sort the matter out. Rafiq claimed the same thing and also said he must now live in Pakistan because of all this. He also claimed the Yorkshire Post is a racist newspaper.