Rafiq under attack
AZEEM RAFIQ’S campaign to rid Yorkshire and English cricket of “institutional racism” has been undermined by the disclosure that he sent anti-Semitic messages on Facebook in 2011 when he was 19 years old.
He had said another Pakistani-origin cricketer had been reluctant to share a dinner bill because “Hahaha he is a Jew...”, adding, “How wrong is that? Only Jews do that sort of s**t.”
It is now also alleged that in December 2015, he texted lewd messages of a sexual nature to Gayathri Ajith, a 16-year-old girl who he met on a flight from Manchester to Dubai.
Rafiq may be losing some of the moral high ground he had so far been occupying. There will be those who will seek to deflect attention away from the racism that he and other cricketers have suffered over many decades.
Commenting on Rafiq’s anti-Semitic messages, but before the “sexting” allegations came to light, the BBC’s sports editor, Dan Roan, put it very well when he said “there is no denying that the revelation is highly embarrassing for Rafiq, and will change many people’s perception of him.
“Put simply, he has been seen to have made the kind of offensive racial slur that he has criticised others for, inevitably leaving him open to accusations of doublestandards and hypocrisy.
“What many will insist Rafiq’s apology does not change, however, is the fact that he was found to have been the victim of racism over a long period of time at Yorkshire. That racism is not ‘banter’.
“That Roger Hutton – the former chairman of the club – fears it is institutionally racist. And that the man who replaced him – Lord Patel – has conceded the investigation into Rafiq’s claims was ‘flawed’.”