Hello and welcome to Stumped, your intercontinental hit of news, features and debate from the
quirky world of cricket. I'm Alison Mitchell in London, where I watched on the television
as England went out of the T20 World Cup at the semi-final stage. Beaten by New Zealand
when Jimmy Neesham, and my namesake Daryl Mitchell, stars of the show with the bat.
New Zealand, of course, now have the chance to get a first global one day title, which
they would add to their World Test Championship crown. Wouldn't that be something?
Jim Maxwell for the ABC in Sydney. Yes, it has a somewhat Australasian flavour to it,
doesn't it? The approaching final and wonderful news for Daryl Mitchell. His father, of course
was an All Blacks coach, so it's strong sporting family in New Zealand and they play above
their weight all the time. I think for most of us in the sporting world, that was a win
that was due for New Zealand over England. We'll see what happens next.
Retribution over the old country finally, but I've just suddenly realised we've got
stars for every surname; you got a Maxwell star, we ve got a few Sharma s going and of
course Mitchell as well now so that's fantastic for Stumped. I'm Charu Sharma for All India Radio
in Bangalore deep in the middle of organising a major tennis tournament for a group called
the International Club of Tennis, which I'm a member of as well. However, this is the
first one after Covid. The depression doesn't go away not because of our loss in cricket
and not because of the weather here. It's just been raining for the last two or three
days and I fear that our event may suffer greatly but of course, Indian cricket has
suffered greatly. We'll see where we go with that.
I think you need to move indoors for tennis, Charu, clearly with all that rain. Good to
have you both along as always. Now we're going to start this week with the racism scandal
that has engulfed cricket in the UK over the last few weeks. The specific story goes back
more than a year, but it escalated recently becoming front page as well as back page news
and leading national news programmes and also leading to MPs getting involved. Now it surrounds
Yorkshire County Cricket Club. They were accused of being institutionally racist by one of
their former players, Azeem Rafiq, who's a former England under-19 captain. He said he
was left close to suicide by some of the experiences he had at the club when he was playing.
Now Rafiq first spoke out about this in September 2020. Yorkshire then launched an independent
investigation, although its independence perceived or otherwise was questioned by Rafiq because
the law firm appointed by the club to run it used to employ the club's chairman. It
was nearly a year later before Yorkshire received the report of the investigation, while Rafiq
claimed that it had failed to speak to key witnesses. Yorkshire first announced that
Rafiq had been the victim of "inappropriate behaviour." Later, following pressure from
MPs, the club released a summary of the report which said he was the victim of racial harassment
and bullying. The club said there was insufficient evidence to conclude that Yorkshire was "institutionally
racist." They also said "there was no conduct or action taken by any club employees, players
or executives that warranted disciplinary action." Now that created uproar amongst the
public, particularly when a report emerged in the media claiming that a racist term about
Rafiq's Pakistani heritage was regularly used towards him, but the investigation concluded
that that was "friendly and good natured banter." Now since then, several senior figures at
Yorkshire have resigned, a host of sponsors have walked out and the ECB has suspended
the club from hosting international matches. Now, a new Yorkshire chairman is in place,
that's Lord Kamlesh Patel and in a press conference last Monday, he said Azeem Rafiq should be
praised as 'whistleblower,' and in what's really been a complete change of tone for
the club, made a full, unreserved apology.
A lot of criticism has been levelled at the way Yorkshire have dealt with it all, so what
can be learnt? What is best practice when it comes to dealing with complaints of racism
or harassment within sports organisations? Now, a little bit of disclosure at this point,
I sit on the board of an organisation called Sports Resolutions, who run investigations
and provide dispute resolution to the sports industry amongst other things. But let's speak
to an expert who is directly involved in the field. That's John Mehrzad, a practising QC
at Littleton Chambers who specialises in sports law and commercial. John, welcome to Stumped.
Well, first of all, Alison, absolutely delight to join this august panel on this podcast:
yourself, Jim and Charu. It's a real pleasure.
John, what is best practice when it comes to dealing with complaints of racism or harassment
in sports organisation? What, for you, would be a non-negotiable, in terms of how things
should be gone about? Well, I'm going to focus in on independent
reviews because that's the situation we're looking at. And Alison, as you know, I carry
out training to various sporting bodies, both in the domestic and international level in
terms of best practice. And I believe that there are two points that are absolutely non-negotiable.
One you've touched on already, which is whoever carries out the independent review, be it
an individual or panel, there must be no conflicts at all. And that is not actual conflicts,
you don't actually have to be a member of the law firm, but perceived conflicts. And
that's very important because we're talking about public integrity, public trust and
confidence. And therefore, people who feel as though they are able to contribute to these
types of reviews, investigations, do not think they're whitewash. That's point one. That's
fairly obvious, but you'd be surprised how often that might be overlooked. And then secondly,
if I can go right to the other end of the process, something I'm very firm about is
that if I spend many months and speak to dozens, if not more people, and my job is to uncover
and give a view independently, it is imperative that my report or my panel's report is published
in full. There is no point in going through this process, if it is not published in full
because it obviously, as has happened in this case, leads to rumour, conjecture, and an
utter lack of confidence in the process. And I should say, just as a matter of practicality,
in such scenarios where the press interest is intense, it is inevitable; number one,
that the report will be leaked anyway, which has happened. And number two, there will be
a concurrent, a legal process, which means that the report would have to be disclosed
as part of that legal process. So, it makes no sense I'm afraid practically. And sometimes
tough conversations have to be had at the outset that a report is published in full.
John, it's Jim Maxwell. I was going to ask you about the particular case here trust and
confidence you talked about. On the one hand, Yorkshire County Cricket Club and on the other
the governing body, the ECB. So how closely should these two be working together and what
power do both of these organisations have?
Of course, what the regulator and funder would say - in this case, the ECB - we are not the
employer. It is Yorkshire Cricket Club who is the employer, so the duties are not on
us to investigate. But with the greatest of respect, whilst that might be correct in pure
employment law terms, the impact these allegations have on cricket are far wider than simply
Yorkshire Cricket Club. It would come as a great surprise to me, given the contents of
the report we've seen so far if there are not disciplinary proceedings now launched
against Yorkshire County Cricket Club, and potentially some of some of its players or
staff depending on the precise context of the report because the ECB is duty bound to look
into it now.
So, as we look at this, are we talking about education? Training? Are the people
involved in this up to the task of managing a problem that we've seen unfold here with
the Yorkshire club?
It is mandatory that if an allegation of discrimination is found to be proven, it is mandatory that
there is not simply a suspension and a fine, but that particular individual is obliged
to carry out an education course, within a set period of time. And if they don't carry
out that education course, within a set period of time, their suspension is indefinite. Now,
I've looked at recent ECB decisions, and there are recommendations for education, it is not
mandatory. For every employer in this country, this jurisdiction of England and Wales, has
to have an equality, diversity and inclusion policy. But what I have seen in sports, so
you know, I'm not going to name names, but sometimes it can be a box ticking exercise.
That a policy exists, but it's not implemented in practice and there's very limited training.
What are the lines that people have to face, the fine lines between banter and the obvious
informality that exists within team members of certainly sport, and the transgression
of that because often that can be a very fine line or difficult to read.
I agree with that. And I suspect many of us who've played sports in the past, may
have heard historically comments, but I'm afraid certainly within this jurisdiction,
society evolves, culture evolves and standards that may once upon a time have been overlooked,
I'm afraid are no longer acceptable standards. But I will say this, Charu, and I think it's
important. When it comes to harassment, the legal test and this is going to sound slightly
counterintuitive and complicated is a mixed objective and subjective test. So, you may
feel offended by something that is stated. But the next step is whether a reasonable
person would also feel the same way. And so there may be contexts, you know, after a game
joshing that nobody feels offended, nobody feels personally offended, and nobody from
the outside could view it as being offensive. But you take those words totally out of the
context and it would look potentially like harassment of some sort. So context is key,
and it's something that's drummed into all disciplinary panellists and investigators,
but you don't just take words and look at them in a dictionary sense, you look at the
context in which they are used. I think that's very important to remind listeners in terms
of it isn't just a pure black and white answer.
John, thank you for your input. Really fascinating to get your expert take and your insight.
John Mehrzad, QC at Littleton chamber specialising in sports law and commercial. Well, listening
to all of that along with us is Anuj Dal, all-rounder with Derbyshire County Cricket Club,
and vice chair of the Professional Cricketers Association. Anuj is also part of the PCA's
equality, diversity, and inclusion group. Hi Anuj, I just wonder what your thoughts are
on what you've been hearing there from John? Hi Alison, firstly, thank you for having me
on the podcast. I think it's very obviously a massive topic at the moment. And it's so
heart-breaking to hear what Azeem had to go through. But on the other hand, it's
a topic that fortunately, the PCA and our governing body have been so proactive in,
in trying to deal with in terms of education side of it. And, just making players aware
of actually, this topic is ever so present in our game at the moment. It's very important
that it's being addressed properly.
Anuj, Jim Maxwell in Sydney, listening to your fine words there. But a couple of months
ago, you mentioned in an interview with your club's website, that "now is a great time to
challenge and further education." Have you seen any of these new educational programmes,
and what do they involve? Hi Jim. The education side is really powerful.
It's run by the EW group, and it's being delivered to 90 different groups across the playing
membership; not only players, staff members, it's run to academy members and youth pathways
as well. They're very informative. They create, hopefully, an environment where players within
a changing room are comfortable just asking questions, understanding, you know, what is
construed as banter, what is construed as actual racism. The uptake has been absolutely
fantastic. We had those education sessions with the EW group, but also we've had follow
up sessions, we've had videos from players across all the counties, also the England
cricket board that their men's teams and female teams, we've had videos from across the whole
system talking about how they've engaged with the education sessions. And also hearing about
what other players had to kind of deal with. I know before the education sessions were
actually tied in, we had a kind of a pilot session that, you know, incorporated a lot
of players from different counties, but some England players on there. I know on the pilot
group that I had, I had Chris Jordan in there. And it was extremely powerful hearing your
own teammates, and also other fellow professionals talk about what they'd had to deal with.
It was really, really powerful. And you can see that what it has done is it has just made
the stigma of racism, it's kind of eradicated that a little bit and it's just made people
more aware and comfortable to actually talk about it and ask questions about it. Because
we have different players coming from different countries and for them in one country, you
know, the social acceptance might be very different to what it's like in the UK.
We want to create an open environment for players to be able to feel comfortable. And you know,
the best thing I found is players feeling comfortable to ask me questions about my culture,
you know about my religion, and what is acceptable, what isn't acceptable. And likewise, the same way.
Anuj, hi this as Charu Sharma from Bangalore, India. If you put on your PCA hat, what support
have you been able to offer Azeem through the association? And what more can the organisation
do to help more who might be willing to come forth to be a whistleblower or as Michael
Holding may have said, to share their story of the racism they felt in the game?
Hi Charu. I think, right from the start when, when Azeem first came out with the story,
I think the PCA were very proactive in making sure that they were involved in the case.
The whole point of the Professional Cricketers Association is to support players no matter
what, through any form of issue. The PCA is such a massive organisation, you know, they
do a brilliant job of making sure that regardless of where you are in the game, whether you're
a current player or an ex-player, it's not just the one education session and then it's
done, there's an EDI group that's very proactive in terms of looking at certain issues that
are obviously cropping up now, what to target in the future. This group consists of
PCA members, ECB Members, current and former players. It's an excellent group to sit on
and it's been excellent to see the delivery of the sessions and how it's targeting the
players, how it's giving them support, and how it will continue to give players all support
moving forward.
Anuj, keep up the good work. Thank you for coming on Stumped this morning and let's hope
that the game and society with it can move in the right direction. Anuj Dal, thank you
for being with us on Stumped. Thanks guys.
Well, that's it for Stumped this week here on All India Radio. Next week, we will look
back on the final of the men's T20 World Cup - we'll know who the champions are - but for
now my thanks to Jim Maxwell and Charu Sharma and of course you for listening. You can follow
us during the week on Twitter, we're @BBCWSSport, and use #BBCStumped. See you again next week.
Bye bye.