Yorkshire CCC racism row Exclusive Part 2: Azeem Rafiq told Gary Ballance to ‘go back to Zimbabwe’

Extracts from the independent report commissioned by Yorkshire in 2020, now seen by The Yorkshire Post, show that Ballance, who was born in Harare, alleged that Rafiq would “make jokes about his family’s farm being seized by supporters of the Robert Mugabe regime”.

The report determined that Rafiq “often made comments about GB’s nationality/heritage” and that Rafiq would “often make jokes about his Zimbabwean nationality”.

It further judged that Rafiq used the term “Kevin” to refer to a black player, a term which Rafiq accused Ballance of using to everyone of colour, a suggestion the report also dismissed.

The former team-mates were close friends who were said to have engaged in back-and-forth put-downs in social settings, a claim investigators accepted.

Rafiq refutes all allegations and denied that he took part in such back-and-forth jousts.

The report decided this was not “credible”, though, and was “contradicted by the evidence of other witnesses”. It said it did “not accept that AR was offended by GB’s comments either at the time they were made or subsequently”.

The report found that “the allegations against GB were motivated by AR’s loss of form in conjunction with GB’s position as captain” after accepting evidence that Rafiq had “fractious and challenging” relationships with those in authority.

The verbal toing-and-froing between the pair was corroborated by one current Yorkshire player, who told investigators that Rafiq and Ballance would “give each other sh*t” and that although they “got on really well”, it “got a bit sour” and they “fell out towards the end”. This player alleged that Rafiq would call Ballance ‘Zimbo from Zimbabwe’”.

The crisis erupted last November when Ballance admitted using the P-word to Rafiq – “my closest friend and supporter in cricket” – in the context of two friends trading insults on nights out drinking. Ballance said he “deeply regretted” the language used but pointedly has not apologised to Rafiq, adding that “because we were such good friends and spent a lot of time drinking and on nights out, we both said things privately to each other which were not acceptable”.

Ballance added that “at no time did I believe or understand that I had caused ‘Rafa’ distress”, a claim the panel upheld. It said the dialogue was “not one-sided” and that “both AR and GB gave as good as they got”.

In a statement issued last November, Ballance, 32, who has not played for the Yorkshire first-team this season due to problems with his mental health, criticised the “misleading and selective nature of the reporting” of the story.

Extracts from the investigation report, conducted by the international law firm Squire Patton Boggs and published on a website, were responsible for lighting the blue touchpaper in November when it was suggested that the report had effectively dismissed the P-word as “banter”.

This precipitated the intervention of politicians, the mass desertion of sponsors from the club, the departure of more than 20 staff members at Headingley and the loss of millions of pounds from the club’s coffers. However, far from dismissing the P-word in that way, the report expressed complete disapproval. “The panel is particularly critical of the use of the ‘P’ word by GB and does not find that term to be acceptable to use in any context.”

The website further reported that “despite admitting recalling that Rafiq broke down in tears at one point, the player (Ballance) insisted he had no idea he was causing offence and would have stopped if Rafiq had asked”. However, there does not appear to be any mention in the report of this incident occurring, and Ballance himself said: “To my knowledge, it has never been alleged that I reduced ‘Rafa’ to tears.”

The report, which the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee chose not to publish under parliamentary privilege last November, despite having previously demanded that Yorkshire do so in the interests of transparency, was described by Julian Knight MP, chair of the DCMS select committee, as “a Venn diagram of stupidity”.

There has perhaps been no more damning indictment of a document, therefore, but the DCMS did seem happy to take parts of the report at face value and instead published Rafiq’s unchallenged witness statement to the Leeds employment tribunal.

The report itself was most obviously compromised by two factors: first, that the investigating team gave their take on events before a separate panel reviewed and gave theirs, and, second, by the absurd equivalence of the P-word with ‘Zimbo’, which undermined credibility. It remains, however, the most serious attempt yet to get to the truth.