YCCC racism crisis local battle with widespread implications for cricket

“Vacancy: YCCC Chair” appeared rather starkly on the website of Yorkshire County Cricket Club on Feb. 10.

And behind this job advertisement lies a salutary tale with implications for cricket around the world.

It is less than 16 months ago that YCCC was engulfed in a crisis brought about by allegations of racism by one of its former players, Azeem Rafiq.

His testimony to the Parliamentary Select Committee of the UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport on Nov. 16, 2021, sparked a chain of events which are still in train and unresolved.

How the matter attracted the attention of a parliamentary committee, with the hearings being live streamed nationally, lies in the procedures and governance adopted by YCCC and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), the sport’s governing body.

It is understood that Rafiq made his initial complaints in 2017 to YCCC, formalizing them in 2018, a year in which his contract was not renewed.

Following the appointment of a YCCC chair with a reforming agenda in 2020, Rafiq’s issues were revealed in a media interview. This provoked the chair to appoint a law firm to conduct an independent review of the allegations.

Its report was submitted in August 2021 to YCCC. The club chose not to make it public or share it with the ECB. A summary was made available on Sept. 10 and a redacted copy to Rafiq on Oct. 13.

YCCC apologized to Rafiq, accepting that he had been the victim of “racial harassment and bullying,” but insisted there was insufficient evidence to prove or disprove institutionalized racism. An announcement in late October 2021, confirmed that no individuals would face disciplinary action.

This dead-batting was too much for those seeking to make a breakthrough.

YCCC’s