- Former Yorkshire player to speak at around 9.30am GMT
- Vaughan battles to save reputation as Rashid backs Rafiq
- Explainer: what to expect from Tuesday’s DCMS hearing
Hello and welcome to live coverage of today’s digital, culture, media and sport committee hearing called to examine Yorkshire’s county cricket club’s response to the racism allegations made by Azeem Rafiq.
The hearing begins at 9.30am GMT with Rafiq’s evidence; Roger Hutton, Yorkshire’s former chairman, is expected at around 10.15am, and the ECB chief executive Tom Harrison at 11.15am. Other ECB representatives are also scheduled to appear: Kate Miller, the chief diversity and communications officer; Meena Botros, the director of legal and integrity, and Alan Dickinson, a non-executive director.
In 2020 Azeem Rafiq went public with allegations of the racism he says he experienced while a player at Yorkshire during two spells from 2008 to 2014 and 2016 to 2018. This prompted a 12-month investigation by the club, with a summary of the resulting report released in September upholding seven of Rafiq’s 43 claims and confirming he was the victim of “racial harassment” in his first spell and bullying during the second.
Despite a conclusion that the club failed to properly escalate his initial complaints in 2018 as per its own policies, the club announced on 28 October that no action would be taken against any current employee. This, plus a leaked element of the still unpublished report that showed the panel considered the use of the P-word towards Rafiq to be “in the spirit of friendly banter”, prompted a raft of MPs to voice their displeasure earlier this month and saw Julian Knight, chair of the digital, culture, media and sport select committee, set up Tuesday’s hearing to get to the bottom of the issue.
