Newsflash... Yorkshire are in a big mess
CONGRATULATIONS to Yorkshire County Cricket club – high-fives all round.
It has taken some doing against pretty stiff competition – the breakaway European Super League for example – but it is difficult to think of an episode in sporting history that has been handled as badly as the Azeem Rafiq racism scandal.
For a county cricket club to make BBC’S News at Ten in November as the third item is a big achievement – for every wrong reason going.
There have been mistakes made by Yorkshire from day one.
The minute Rafiq’s allegations came to light an independent panel should have been appointed to investigate without fear or favour.
If it had been concluded the club was institutionally racist it would have been something to work from.
As it is, this is an unholy mess. The club’s sponsors saw a beamer and ran off with their cash inside 24 hours.
The ECB issued as strong a statement from a governing body as they could, coming down on Yorkshire like a proverbial tonne of bricks.
But then chief executive Tom Harrison confirmed he hadn’t read the report which damned the county. Unbelievable.
This episode will dog the county for years. It will damage them financially and reputationally.
And, at this moment in time, it’s hard to say Yorkshire don’t deserve it.
WORRIED about abuse on social media?
Don’t fret, West Ham’s fans still at least have the front to dish it out face-to-face – although the nature of it beggars belief.
Of course, there was a gang of them when they said it, haranguing a Jewish fella on a plane as they all travelled to Belgium.
Rarely does this column lay into supporters but some behaviour deserves calling out for what it is. It’s despicable. And cowardly.
And the biggest irony? The club’s co-owner David Gold, is Jewish.
Couldn’t make it up, could you?