ASIAN CLUBS IN YORKSHIRE ARE FEELING MARGINALISED

THE chairman of Yorkshire’s largest Asian cricket league says that racism is rampant in the county.

In another sickening testimony, Taj Butt has revealed just how deep-rooted Yorkshire’s racism problem is, claiming that predominantly white clubs are determined to marginalise Asian ones.

Azeem Rafiq’s accusations came as no surprise to Butt, who has endured over 40 years of institutional racism at first hand.

He said: “The league is now 42 years old and the reason there is a need for an organisation like ours tells you everything you need to know.

“The league was set up because we had no opportunities to take part in cricket.

“We were denied access to all sorts of facilities and opportunities. To a certain extent, that’s still the case now.” Butt has attempted to take the Quaid e Azam League – which consists of 28 teams – into Yorkshire’s cricket pyramid.

“We’ve tried to become a mainstream league, rather than ‘the Asian league’ as people refer to us but the way we’ve been treated over the years means we haven’t been able to become one.

“And all this despite the fact that the community has been playing cricket in Yorkshire for over 50 years. The clubs in the inner-city areas want to go on and play in the better leagues. What we’ve found is that time and again – and we’ve applied three times to join a better league – we go to the AGM and no one allows us in.

“When the pyramid system came in, we thought that that might be the answer to our prayers because you don’t need a vote by the clubs. You start at the bottom and you work your way up.

“The clubs that are predominantly Asian aren’t in the pyramid system. We’ve simply been left out.

“Men’s cricket is run on segregated lines. In the 90s, there was this ‘white flight’, and a lot of the

white communities started moving away from the centre of Bradford.

“The same thing happened with the cricket. A lot of those clubs were predominantly white clubs and when they found the local community was changing, they were coming up against teams with more and more Asian players in. They obviously wanted to play against other players like themselves so they ended up moving leagues.”

The ECB’S flagship South Asian Action Plan is also, he fears, making a bad situation even worse.

“If we wanted to go and stick to our own community and play other small tournaments against other Asian communities then there’s plenty of funding around,” Butt said.

“But if I wanted to have a mainstream club that plays in a mainstream league at the highest level, that’s not covered in the strategy at all.”