Azeem Rafiq on tackling racism in cricket, losing his son, and facing his own failures

Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy

Channel 4 News

Society & Culture, News, Politics

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2023

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2017, Azeem Rafiq’s world collapsed around him. He lost his baby son, and shortly after, the career that he had worked his entire life for, after he blew the whistle on racism and bullying at Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Azeem found himself at the centre of a long-running scandal which unlocked a long process which is now international.

In the years that followed, Rafiq’s grief, his battle with the club, and numerous allegations of poor behaviour against himself, saw him reach the lowest of lows - struggling for money, often staying in bed for days at a time.

Fast forward to 2023, Azeem has written a new book, “It’s Not Banter, It’s Racism: What Cricket’s Dirty Secret Reveals About Our Society”, and is looking ahead to a brighter future; hoping to get back into the game that he has devoted his life too, and campaigning for meaningful change in sport.

In today’s episode of Ways to Change the World, Azeem looks back at several years of pain and growth, and tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy about his hopes for the future.

Produced by Freya Pickford, Imahn Robertson and Alice Wagstaffe.

Warning: this episode includes offensive language.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Ways to Change the World. I'm Krishnan Giri Murthy and this is the
0:05.0	podcast in which we talk to extraordinary people about the big ideas in their lives and
0:09.4	the events that have helped shape them. My guest this week is former Cricketer Azim Rafik
0:14.8	who blew the whistle on racism at Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Azim suffered racism
0:19.7	and bullying at Yorkshire and in 2020 spoke out about it and at legal action. It blew
0:25.5	open a long-running scandal in this country and several other cricketers came forward
0:30.3	with their experiences of discrimination too. It has unlocked a long process which is now
0:37.2	international. Azim Rafik, thanks very much for coming in. Thanks mate. You have had a
0:43.5	bizarre two or three years very upsetting. It's got to the point where you no longer live
0:49.6	in England. You're just here visiting from your new home or current home in Dubai.
0:56.0	And it really got that bad. Yeah look I mean you know I feel like over the last three years
1:01.6	a lot of times I'm sort of looking at the whole thing and thinking is this really happening?
1:06.3	It feels like I'm living in a film you know it's the sort of things you see you know being
1:11.0	shouted up constantly. The abuse online has been you know some of the worst I've ever experienced
1:18.0	and then you know a couple of incidents that happened towards the end where I decided you know
1:22.8	I had to go where you know my wife called me and said there's someone watching our house
1:29.2	and at that point I thought you know I'm just really waiting for something really bad to happen.
1:33.4	I have to take my family out of this situation for their physical and psychological safety.
1:38.2	And there were actual physical confrontations when there are people entering your property.
1:45.5	Yeah I mean we've had we had situations you know we we opened a business a couple of days after
1:49.8	this blew up in 21 you know we've had people coming in abusing you know physically threatening
1:55.8	you know throwing things and then we had a situation at my parents' house where
	...

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