The reflections of a whistleblower: A conversation with Azeem Rafiq.

How the man who exposed a culture of racism in cricket is looking to use his platform for good, build a new career and put past traumas behind him.

Azeem Rafiq found himself at the centre of one of the most significant stories in the history of English cricket in 2020 after lifting the lid on institutionalised racism and a culture of bullying, from his time at Yorkshire County Cricket Club. 

With revelations and accusations levelled at former teammates including some of the game’s biggest stars and the failings of the club to address his concerns, Rafiq found himself under immense scrutiny. 

After his emotional testimony to a DCMS Committee in November 2021, Rafiq received a barrage of abuse leading to the off-spinner and his family leaving the UK, amid fears for their safety. 

I caught up with the 32 year-old this week as he looks to write a new chapter in his life and put the trauma of his past behind him. 

We covered a range of topics based on his extraordinary experiences of the past few years.  He has plenty to say about sports governance, media, conflict management, race equality, comms strategy and the future of his beloved sport, cricket. 

Azeem, first of all thanks for taking the time to speak to me. How is life at the moment for you?

The circumstances that led me to move here [to Dubai] were not positive but being here has provided me with a lot of peace, exciting opportunities and lovely weather. I'm really looking forward to what the future holds for myself and for my family. I'm just really energised and determined to make sure the next next chapter of whatever I do brings a lot of opportunities for everyone. 

After speaking out about racism in cricket, and effectively finding yourself at the centre of the sport’s biggest crisis in years, you have found yourself with quite an impactful and far reaching platform - how have you come to terms with that?

My life changed while I was sitting in that [DCMS Committee] room on the 16th of November 2021, I went in there and I just poured my heart out. I was a pretty broken man to be honest and I am thankful that I’m in a pretty good place at the minute. I’ve seen so many layers to what I spoke about and I see the need to keep having these conversations. I saw what happened with Vinicius Junior, and I just felt so sorry for him. But also, I felt proud of him - the way he stood up. But then, the response from LaLiga’s president [Javier Tebas] showed exactly why these issues persist. I've spoken openly about - the mental health struggles I've had, but also about where some of the blockages and where people and organisations have, in my opinion, looked the other way or even potentially just looked after their own interest and not allowed the space to move forward and get to a place where, we can all genuinely say that we're treated equally.

“I felt sorry for Vinicius Junior, but I also felt proud of him - the way he stood up. The response from LaLiga’s president showed exactly why these issues persist.”

Do you see your story as something that resonates in other sports and other parts of society? 

I've always felt from the minute I spoke out, I felt that this is not just about me . I feel like I've been handed a responsibility from Allah. My dad said to me on the night of after the DCMS hearing ‘you know you've done more today than any runs or wickets or any World Cup wins could have done.’

People get in touch with me from across society in the hope that I can help them. I want to continue to do that. I spoke out to make sure that other people don't go through what I went through. I feel like I've got a real opportunity to make a big difference.

In this newsletter, I explore areas like marketing, sponsorship and comms strategy. It’s particularly interesting to see how organisations respond in a crisis and, in the case of your story, we saw an inability to act and communicate properly by Yorkshire CCC…

If, as an organisation, we find ourselves in a situation where there's a grievance that first point of response is so crucial and so many organisations get that wrong. 

They get into a risk management strategy. They get lawyers involved and it gets to a point where it it creates more trauma and becomes more clouded and complex, whereas having a clear sort of method in place, clear policies, but also just being human makes a difference.  Often, people who speak out, all they want is someone to hear them, listen to them and understand them. If that part is managed properly, the comms becomes easier. 

Organisations often go into defensive mode when athletes use their social media platforms to attack a club or league. Vinicius Junior accused LaLiga directly of being racist much like you did the same with Yorkshire CCC. How does it get to this point?

Yes, there has to be a comms response, but it's understanding that someone has suffered. There is a victim here and there is someone who has not just suffered once. I follow football enough to know how much racist abuse Vinicius Junior has been subjected to. What happened with him and the president online was boiling point - but my view is that you should never get to this point. It’s pretty sad - we’ve seen videos and the fact that you've taken a kid, to a point where he's left with no choice but to do what he did and call it out in the way he did means that things have not been handled well.  I think Tebas said that they set up meetings and he he didn't turn up. But you know what,  if I was in charge of that league, the first time it happened, I would have gone and seen him. 

You experienced a similar failure to act before going public..

For practically 18 months, and I've got emails, I've got text messages, phone calls, I was contacting the people at the ECB and the PCA and saying let's just all get in a room. I can see where this is heading. It’s going to end up being a car crash..and genuinely, you know, they didn't because they thought, who the hell is he? That’s where you need strong leadership and someone who might take a more human approach.

What are your views on the role sponsors can play in helping to make organisations more accountable and reflect the values that they like to align with? 

Brands and sponsors can't hold a conversation around climate change, social change, gender equality, race equality without being able to back that up. People expect action. At the minute it might be the right thing to do from a moral point of view but in five to ten years’ time it will be the only thing to do from a business and a clientele point of view.

Take sport, where leadership and decision making is 95 per cent white, yet we have cities now with much greater diversity such as Coventry or Leicester. So immediately you see the data standing out and showing there needs to be a shift in the industry in order to serve modern society.

At Yorkshire there was some interaction with one of the sponsors  - one of the main sponsor’s CEO. I met her and she spoke about how they felt let down by the club and the information the club had given them about my situation. She was willing to resign if the company didn’t back her decision to pull out of the sponsorship. She showed clear leadership.

Going forward sponsors have to be clearer on their values and hold club’s accountable that if, those values are not being reflected at all times, it invalidates the contract. We know how the world works and sadly the victims can’t bring accountability but the sponsors can. 

Nike were criticised for leaving it late to withdraw their sponsorship of Yorkshire. Do you think they did the right thing or was it too late?

My ideal scenario would have been that that they didn't leave. From listening to the sponsors that I spoke to, they were all kept in the dark with it all. I don't think these guys were honestly kept informed of what was happening. I think it would be wrong to say that it was the right thing or the wrong thing. It’s hard for me because I was so involved and and also Yorkshire’s my club.

So that day, when all the sponsors left, was really difficult for me. I found that really difficult because if Yorkshire had gone under that would have made things worse. I know when it got to that stage I was calling for sponsors to take action but I think  the responsibility comes a lot earlier and It’s very much even before you sign the contract - having the right process, clauses and transparency in place.

I know it's difficult because these organisations and brands are massive. They're huge, but I think because of how huge they are, they have the biggest role to play. A strong statement from sponsors earlier in the process might have changed things. 

Sponsors have a powerful platform and clout - but so too do players. Did you expect more support?

I say the same for a lot of the players that just look the other way because they knew what happened. We all have a voice, we all have a responsibility and we all have a platform and the way the footballers in the last few years have used that platform for more than just kicking a ball is so impressive and heart warming.

I have a lot of respect for Marcus Rashford, Raheem Sterling, Jordan Henderson and look at Trent Alexander-Arnold with his initiative to help young footballers coming out of the academies early. It’s very inspirational. 

You mentioned accountability, the repercussions of your revelations and the ensuing ECB investigation, continue. It recently emerged that some of the players who have been fined for using racist language towards you are refusing to pay up. Do you think the whole process has failed?

Well firstly, I always said from day one that this is not about individuals. Having said that, some individuals have behaved in a manner that has been disappointing, and they continue to do to this. 

I don't want anyone's mental health to suffer, and that's been sad to see, but I think cricket has shown, just like football has, just like our society has, as a whole that the perpetrators quickly become victims and there's not the courage or conviction in really showing with action that there is zero tolerance.  I think if people accept their failings, absolutely, they should be helped and supported but there's a lot of people that are refusing to even take any responsibility.  I think, if I was being very honest, which I have been throughout, I think the ECB and the the CDC (Cricket Discipline Commission) have largely escaped scrutiny in this and that's because quite frankly I'm exhausted. There's a lot of things that have happened that I've not spoken about at this stage just because I want the game to have the opportunity to get better.

You have also had to educate yourself after anti-semitic Facebook comments you posted in 2011 emerged. How is your relationship with the Jewish community today?

Without this conversation, my story's not complete. Sorry was only going to be the start. I've made friends for life and I've built relationships. A lot of the people that have supported me over the last two years have been from the Jewish community. I was honoured to be a candle lighter at Anne Frank’s 75th anniversary lunch.

If there are Jewish people out there who never forgive me, that’s fine because they are well within their rights. It was very important for me to do exactly what I'd been asking other people to do, which is accept, apologise and work to make a better future.

When you were speaking out about your own experiences were you conscious that your words might resonate beyond cricket or indeed sport?

Honestly not at the start. I was actually thinking there's a lot of people suffering with this in cricket. It’s a small industry and if you step out a line, you ain't going to get a contract elsewhere. 

I was seeing it constantly, so I knew it was bigger than me, but I didn't know the way that it would strike a chord with so many people. A lot of people have come up to and have said ‘your testimony has made me reflect on all them times I was being called this, that and the other’.  

As British Asians, our parents had no choice but to look the other way and we got brought up with the language of ‘you've gotta be better’. ‘You've got to be three times better. Just ignore it’.

People say ‘play the game’ and you have to ‘be in that room’. Yes I want to be in that room but not if I have to suffer that language and abuse. I won't if I'm compromising my values before I even get in the room. Why do you think they're letting you in the room? 

So you sit there and you do nothing because they have just let you in and we got into this mindset of being very thankful for any opportunities as if we didn't deserve it. It's a colonial mindset. We've got into this space where we thought this is how we're going to progress and actually if anything the whole Black Lives Matter movement taught us to stand up for yourself and it got to a point where we've got to get respect for ourselves as British Asians. 

Even when there's racism conversations and when I've spoken at places, racism is seen as black and white - the brown is forgotten. It is very much important in the conversation. We are a forgotten race at times. 

People will counteract that by pointing at 10 Downing St and the high political offices, which at this moment are over represented by South Asians though. 

Representation is important.  The whole ‘you can't be what you can't see thing’, I get that. But the most damage done to ethnic minority groups has been through this government, which has had, arguably in the last four or five years the most representative cabinet in terms of ethnic minorities.  So I'm not blanketing everyone, but have our South Asian leaders as a collective, been our voice? I don't think they have. They have let us down. Some of them have not been strong enough once they have been in that room. Some of them have been self centred. A lot of them have had to compromise their values just to be in the room. When you compromise your values to just to be in the room, you don't get anything done. 

You mentioned this division in society at the moment. You are seen as a very polarising figure.  There are many people out there that don’t support you, and see you as perpetuating victim culture, so called woke ideologies and breaking the sanctity of the locker room - how do you deal with that?

I am just not that person. I look at the people and the organisations that have supported me from Mischon de Reya, who are my lawyers on a pro bono basis, to Powerscourt, who have supported me from a PR perspective. I was just a broken human being, pouring my heart out. They see that I want to help society move forward. I don’t know what woke is and all of these things - I stood up for myself. I actually genuinely find parts of all of that quite funny, because the people, the self appointed custodians of free speech, are all for free speech until they get challenged. It’s like people like Piers Morgan. It sells their brand. It sells their thing. 

Yes, Piers Morgan is huge cricket fan, but has not said anything positive about you from day one. 

I remember the interview he ran with Cristiano Ronaldo who spoke about his grievances with Manchester United. I felt a lot of sympathy for Cristiano Ronaldo, I know what it feels like to lose a child and from what I gathered of it, a lot of his grievances came because of how he got treated around that. But on the one hand, Morgan sat there talking favourably for a person who's gone through that, but at the other end he had no sympathy for a lad who's gone through a similar thing. 

His way of getting me on his show was to try and attack me on Twitter. I don't need to go on Piers Morgan’s show to for me to validate my experience.I don't need to go on there for him to shout at me. Individuals like this need these conversations to keep being divisive for them to carry their brand on. 

So what’s next for you, Azeem?

I've been having some really exciting conversations with brands and what I want to do for other people. I'm looking at potentially setting up a foundation working collaboratively with a couple of stakeholders to create opportunities in cricket. I want to create a community around child loss and support around that. I also want to make fun content around cricket. 

You are still someone with a deep passion for cricket - are you still able to enjoy the game?

I am the youngest ever Yorkshire captain. I captained a team full of international stars at the U19 World Cup. That team was full of the lads playing for England now and I have a good foothold and understanding of the game.  I've done my level 4 [cricket coaching qualification] and I just need to finish the assessment of it. I feel like I am a lot of fun and I’m just not this serious if you know me. I've been having conversations with networks and production companies and hopefully I just need to sort of bring it all together and do it in a manner that works for me.

I am really excited for the Ashes and will hopefully podcasting regularly around the series - we are on the look out for a sponsor now. The key will be Ben Stokes because if he gets injured, England have no chance. His captaincy and mindset make this team a lot better than it is. 

Cricket is going through some really exciting changes and it's all powered by the need to market the game to younger fans. How much have you enjoyed this year's Indian Premier League (IPL) and what are your thoughts on The Hundred?

I've not been able to watch the IPL this year as much as I'd like to just because I've been so busy moving here and all the challenges that go with that, but I watched a few games and the final was incredible entertainment. The way Indian cricket has grown is just so good to see. I think the the emergence of India in the power dynamics of cricket is absolutely brilliant. 

As for The Hundred, it’s an interesting conversation. My big problem with The Hundred is the format and I played in the [T20] Blast and that’s an outstanding tournament. What people outside of cricket like about The Hundred, there was no reason that couldn't have just been done with the Blast.I think the new leadership are sort of grappling with how to pragmatically and politically move it into a direction where everyone's happy. The Hundred has been amazing for the women’s game, which just keeps getting better. 

Cricket needs innovative leaders at the top of the game and tech-minded people, because it’s a very divided time for the game but also a very exciting one potentially. 

Azeem, thanks for your time. 

Thank you, Amar. 

For sponsors interested in collaborating with Azeem on his next chapter please contact info@azeemrafiq30.com