True financial cost of Yorkshire CCC racism scandal laid bare in latest accounts

The club’s latest accounts show a pre-tax loss of £2,224,332 for the year ended December 31 2022, with £1,643,629 of that due to actions taken as a result of the crisis.

In total, over the course of 2021 and 2022, Yorkshire incurred £3,535,700 in exceptional expenditure after Azeem Rafiq, their former captain, claimed that the club was institutionally racist and made various allegations against ex-teammates.

The accounts warn that “further exceptional expenditure will be incurred in 2023 on legal costs since the year end, the potential costs of two remaining commercial claims against the club, and if any financial penalty is imposed by the CDC (Cricket Discipline Commission).”

Yorkshire have admitted to four amended charges at the ongoing CDC hearings in London, including a “mishandling” of the initial Squire Patton Boggs investigation “on the basis of a letter from Yorkshire on 8 October 2021, signed by former chairman Roger Hutton, sent to the ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board) and "rejecting the report's findings in respect of allegations the report had upheld”.

Less than a month earlier, Hutton had publicly apologised on Yorkshire’s behalf after seven of 43 allegations were upheld by the SPB probe, insisting that there was “no question” that Rafiq was “a victim of racial harassment and bullying”, the very justification still highlighted by his representatives to back up his claims.

Hutton’s apology, which caused significant internal disquiet and which he himself apparently disagreed with, triggered events which then led to some 20 people leaving their roles at the club, including himself, plunging it into financial meltdown.

However, it was the actions of his successor, Lord Kamlesh Patel, which then resulted in settlement payouts now totalling £1,470,953 as the peer embarked on a controversial overhaul of the organisation in late 2021, most notably a brutal cull of the coaching/backroom team, members of which had questioned Rafiq’s character and motives in a letter to the previous board.

Practically Patel's first act on coming to power was to settle an employment tribunal claim by Rafiq for £200,000 without reading the SPB report, the employment tribunal files or interviewing the staff he subsequently sacked.

The accounts further reveal that Patel paid himself £38,141 to the year ended December 2021 - in other words, for less than two months’ work - followed by a further £104,167 for some work undertaken in 2022.

Yorkshire say that Patel, the first chairman in their history to take payment (£142,308 in total), was acting in “an executive capacity” as the club’s debt spiralled towards circa £20m.

In addition to Patel’s remuneration, perhaps the most striking aspect of the accounts is the legal costs Yorkshire have incurred on the scandal – £914,364 last year on top of £416,101 in 2021. Other exceptional expenses, including those relating to the club’s whistleblowing hotline, governance and listening reviews and EDI plan, came in at £533,813 last year and £200,469 in 2021.

With Yorkshire struggling to make repayments on the £14.9m they owe to the family trusts of Colin Graves, their former chairman, the club has managed to negotiate deferral on those payments to October of next year. Graves, the multi-millionaire founder of the Costcutter supermarket group, is expected to return as chairman and would bring immediate reassurance to the financial situation.

It is understood that Graves is viewed by the board as the ideal man to help Yorkshire out of their present predicament, some two decades after he first performed the task when the club was also on its knees financially.

Tanni Grey-Thompson, the Yorkshire co-chair, addressed the financial position in her statement in the annual report and accounts.

Grey-Thompson spoke of “significant cashflow challenges ahead which must be addressed imminently to protect the long-term future of YCCC”, adding: “A cashflow shortfall over and above the club’s existing borrowing facilities will arise towards the end of 2023, and without further funding of circa £3.5m the club will not be able to continue as a going concern.

"That is the reality we are currently facing and another challenge we are determined to overcome.”

But she stressed positively: “The board and its professional advisers are currently considering financing options to address both the short and long term funding needs of the club.

"That process is ongoing, but given the current number of potential sources of finance, the board considers it reasonable to assume that the necessary funding can be put in place and therefore that the club can be treated as a going concern.”