Azeem Rafiq racism case: ECB want Yorkshire fined and a points deduction

well former Yorkshire player azim rafig revealed in 2020 that he'd suffered at racist abuse during his career his complaints led to a separate investigation into Yorkshire who admitted to mishandling his case the English cricket ball today recommended the club receive a fine of 637 thousand dollars and a significant points reduction rafik who is of Pakistani Heritage has been talking to Al jazeera's Sahel Malik I think

this report's unprecedented I think I want to thank the commission for all the hard work that they've put in um you know it's been uh there's been a lot of delays and it's been frustrating but it was very important that they got it right so I just want to thank Cindy Burr and her team uh you know also I want to thank all them people over

4 000 people who built up the courage you know to talk about their experiences um which is not easy to do the ECB have apologized do you think their apology goes far enough well I think look it's a start the apology is the bare minimum they could do um you know BCB as a governing body have got to take the responsibility uh on the fact that

87 of Pakistani and Bangladeshi people have suffered discrimination while playing Cricket 82 percent of Indian people have suffered discrimination while playing Cricket 75 of black people have suffered discrimination while playing cricket and you know 50 of all people playing the game have suffered discrimination so you know the game of cricket has discriminated against a large part of our society and the apology was the least that

the ECB could do before they start to work in how we're going to move forward you know I'm uncomfortable with praising them for an apology which they had absolutely no choice but to make we've seen the England football team in particular their manager Gareth Southgate really make the fight against discrimination a real big cause of this do you think England cricket team can learn something from

them and really do more yeah I mean look I mean Gareth Southco is an incredible leader right I think he's been incredible with the England footballers and you've seen that uh the young Lads have really sort of you know shown uh society as to how to behave um in terms of yeah I mean wouldn't it be great to uh you know to have the England team

uh day before in Ashes to come out and you know get behind something like that but um I think we might be waiting a long time I think we're a long way away from that um I don't feel like Cricket is still surprisingly and sadly ready to accept that we have such a big issue is it all doom and gloom when it comes to racism and

discrimination in English Cricket we've seen people from ethnic minorities play for England and even Captain England in the past yeah well I mean uh when when you look at this report it pretty much is uh I think what's happened is they've been glossed over by an odd uh you know um odd you know odd person getting uh through the system and playing for England that's not

this that's not a good gauge of whether we have uh racism and discrimination within the game I think this report at this point I don't think there can be any uh question as to the state of uh English cricket and um I think it's very important that people come together and you know make changes now