Gale hits out at ECB ‘witch hunt’
Sacked Yorkshire coach will not go to disciplinary hearing ‘Tainted’ process over racism scandal is seeking ‘scapegoats’
Andrew Gale yesterday said he would refuse to attend the disciplinary hearing into the Yorkshire racism scandal as he broke his silence to deny “each and every” accusation against him and denounce the England and Wales Cricket Board’s “witch hunt” into the case.
In a 3,500-word statement issued before the 5pm deadline for those charged by the ECB over Azeem Rafiq’s complaints of abuse to respond, the county’s sacked head coach declared he had “no faith” in a “tainted” process that had been looking for “scapegoats” and he would instead be “bound by” the findings of his employment tribunal against the club.
Becoming the first of seven current or former Yorkshire players charged to tell his side of the story in full, Gale also said:
➤ The ECB had refused to interview him during its investigation but “clearly spent considerable amounts of time interviewing Azeem”.
➤ None of Rafiq’s accusations against him had been upheld by a “thorough and wide-ranging” inquiry into the case by the law firm Squire Patton Boggs (SPB).
➤ Nothing an “embittered” Rafiq told a parliamentary select committee in November had been challenged by the MPS involved.
➤ The accusations against him were “bewildering” as Rafiq had “never raised these issues with me directly”.
➤ He “played a large part” in Rafiq’s return to Yorkshire, helped him secure a playing role in Australia, and the spinner “had dinner with my family on a number of occasions”.
➤ Yorkshire chairman Lord Patel was on a “crusade” against sacked staff he suspected were dismissed as a condition of the club’s £200,000 settlement with Rafiq.
➤ There had been a succession of leaks of confidential information, including the identities of those who had been charged.
➤ His career in professional cricket had been “destroyed” and his family had been forced to flee their home more than once.
Gale said: “It would appear that the ECB needs to find somebody guilty of something in order to substantiate Yorkshire’s undoubted ‘guilty’ plea. Lord Patel has embraced the entirely false allegation that Yorkshire was an institutionally racist organisation. Even if that were true, which is denied, his ‘clear-out’ of staff was only limited to the coaching and medical staff, and utterly ignored the players and the other departments. Indeed, the latest ECB investigation has only resulted in a small number of people being charged. I believe that we are being put forward as scapegoats and I simply will not co-operate in that process.
“With a very heavy heart and despite the emotional effects on my wife and my young family, I have mentally moved on. I will always be unhappy with how my career ended but I refuse to have my life defined by unsubstantiated allegations by an embittered former colleague and by a Yorkshire/ecb witch hunt. “This decision has not been an easy one to make. I know that it makes it very easy for the ECB to side with Azeem and look to impose some form of sanction on me when none is due. Let’s be frank, the ECB, by charging me without interview, are clearly looking to do that whatever happens. Yorkshire will no doubt applaud that as it looks to avoid compensating the staff it unfairly dismissed. I also know that some people say I should fight the allegations and to not do so in some way gives the allegations added weight. I don’t agree. In light of the outcome of the SPB investigation being ignored, the
leaks to the media, the previous criticism of the ECB in the media, the ECB’S need to be seen to be punishing someone, the undoubted guilty plea from the club and its attempt to throw the staff under the bus, together with the lack of any corroborative evidence, I am not willing to engage in a tainted process when the relationship between the club, certain members of the media and Azeem is as close as it is.
“I hope the club will cease its attempts to publicly blame and financially ruin the staff who worked so hard for the organisation. I hope the club will apologise for its actions and provide each and every person who was dismissed or had their contract terminated with reasonable compensation and, as it did with Azeem, reimburse all legal costs incurred without requiring a gagging clause in any agreement.”
Rafiq declined to comment, while the ECB and Yorkshire did not respond to requests for comment.
After sacking their entire coaching staff in December, Lord Patel said: “Significant change is required at the club and we are committed to taking whatever action is necessary to regain trust.”