Even if you’re not an avid cricket fan, you will probably have seen or read in previous weeks of the ongoing scandal that has embroiled both Yorkshire County Cricket Club (YCCC) and the England Cricket Board (ECB). Azeem Rafiq’s devastating testimony to Parliament on his experiences at Yorkshire has come right in the middle of Islamophobia Awareness Month, yet most commentators are either naive to or have disregarded this tragic irony. This is not a crisis that is external to our community, nor is it limited to cricket. This is why we’ve decided to take this opportunity to evaluate what went wrong at Yorkshire, how this relates to current efforts to highlight as well as tackle the threat of Islamophobic hate crimes during Islamophobia Awareness Month, and what lessons TeamUCL and its sports clubs in particular should take from this experience.
In this first section, Hattie Palmer (UCL Cricket Club Welfare Officer) outlines what Yorkshire Cricket and ECB’s Reaction to this scandal have been, as a case study of what not to do.
Former Yorkshire County Cricket Club captain, Azeem Rafiq, initially raised allegations of institutionalised racism over 3 years ago. Whilst the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) refused to aid with the investigation, the YCCC launched an internal investigation into these allegations and, despite upholding 7 out of 43 of his claims of racial bullying, no action was taken against any players or employees of the YCCC - they also put the repeated use of a racial slur down to “friendly banter”.
Rafiq therefore presented his statement to Parliament to shed light on the casualisation of racism at the club and within the sport, and the undoubted effect this has had on his career and mental health. The YCCC has consequently received a massive backlash: the ECB has suspended them from hosting any major matches at Headingley Stadium, many sponsors have cut ties with the club and both the Prime Minister, and the Health Secretary have called on the ECB and the YCCC to take decisive action against structural racism within cricket.
Since Rafiq’s testimony in front of Parliament, the YCCC have set up a whistleblowing hotline, which has received 36 statements in the first week alone, proving that these experiences are by no means exclusive to Azeem Rafiq, and that the ECB must undertake further investigations into tackling racism within its community.
In contrast, UCL Cricket Club is currently addressing how it can tackle Islamophobia. Firstly, we are aware and always remain ready, to take immediate disciplinary action upon learning of any instance of discrimination within our club. We are making efforts to make reporting of such experiences as easy as possible, by re-emphasising the services available within UCL, and by setting up weekly drop-in sessions with the Welfare Officer to create a safe reporting environment – every Wednesday between 10-10:30am. Finally, we as a Committee have committed to continue to educate ourselves by attending Active Bystander Training and TeamUCL Events discussing issues of inclusion, as well as continually reflecting on how we can be more inclusive towards minority cultures within our club.
By placing these two examples side-by-side, the hope is that you can learn where YCCC and the ECB went wrong, and what they should and could have done to prevent these issues arising in the first place. In this next section, Alexandra Darby (UCL Boat Club’s Rowing Secretary) broadens our perspective, by relating the above issues back to Islamophobia Awareness Month.
Islamophobia awareness month was established in 2012 and is a month dedicated to highlighting Muslim experiences of exclusion and prejudice. And yet, almost a decade on, the silence from organisations and student bodies on this is deafening.
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the first female Muslim MP, said in 2011 that islamaphobia has ‘passed the dinner table test’, meaning that it is a socially acceptable form of prejudice that is overlooked and ubiquitous. Islamophobia is also hard to define in many spaces due to it’s intersectional nature; in its 2018 report, ‘Islamophobia Defined’ the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims formulated that ‘Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness’. In sporting spaces this can be seen in violent manifestations such as the physical attacks Azeem Rafiq describes, but also in the subtle ways his teammates referred to all people of colour as ‘Kevin’. This naming issue can also be seen in wider media when people remove Muslim association from sports professionals such as Mo (Mohamed) Farah, Mo (Mohamed) Salah, Moe (Mohamed) Sbihi etc. Across the Channel, the French Football Federation has a ban on the hijab as part of their prohibition on the wearing of ‘conspicuous religious symbols’, and so Muslim women who choose to wear this are excluded from competing. This has led to the formation of ‘Les Hijabeuses’, an unofficial club in Paris especially for women who are excluded by the FFF’s decision, who compete and play but cannot be recognised or play at any high level. In the U.K., FIFA set the standard for inclusion policies and they only lifted their own hijab ban in 2014. On our campuses, only a handful of British universities have official sports hijabs for their Muslim female athletes.
On a personal note, as a Muslim woman who wears hijab and competes in rowing, I have experienced Islamaphobia in UCL club sport spaces. I am also constantly afraid in competitions of being disqualified for wearing a modified version of the racing kit worn by my teammates, as this is against the mandated rules from British Rowing. Moreover, British Rowing and British University and College Sports (BUCS) have inappropriate systems for dealing with racism or islamophobia in their spaces.
It is very obvious, therefore, that Islamophobia is an issue that affects the entire sporting community and has a clear impact on higher education sport, but, how does this relate to TeamUCL Sports Clubs? In this final section, we outline how these issues affect TeamUCL, and what clubs can do to begin making their spaces more inclusive during Islamophobia Awareness Month.
It should be clear by now that sporting bodies such as the ECB and BUCS currently have very inadequate mechanisms, and indeed cultures, that are preventing them from dealing with this issue. TeamUCL clubs should take note of Yorkshire Cricket failures, and we as a Union should note specifically how the ECB reacted and reflect on our own role in supporting clubs stamp out all forms of harassment, discrimination and bullying. This is especially pressing, given that this has all occurred during Islamophobia Awareness Month, so it is a very appropriate time to begin reflecting on what more we can do. To help you get started, we’ve listed some questions below that club leaders can ask themselves, or be asked by their members, to begin to make their spaces inclusive and to be allies to their Muslim members:
- Do you have strong and clear policies for dealing with issues of Islamophobia and are these known throughout your club?
- Have you ensured that your Committee has adequate cultural awareness to ensure these sensitive issues are recognised and dealt with appropriately?
- Have your committee members completed Active Bystander training, and attended SU events on issues of inclusion?
- Do you or will you actively reach out to Muslim minority cultural societies to see what you can do to make their members feel more included, and how you can collaborate (perhaps by running specific taster sessions for their members)?
- Are inclusive socials mandated in the constitution? Are there a sufficient number so that people can be part of your club community if they only attend these?
- Have you talked to your Muslim members about what you can do to support them (prayer room, kit options, training times, Ramadhan, sober socials for example)?
We hope that this provides a solid basis on which to start, but reflection is only the first step. Club members will only begin to feel safer when concrete action is taken, so we urge you not just to think about these issues, but to make positive change this month as well.
As ever, if you would like to discuss this topic further, or have any specific queries you’d like to talk about, please email us at su-sp.officer@ucl.ac.uk. Similarly, if you have been affected by any of the issues mentioned in this article and would like to seek support, please follow this link for more information.
This article was written collaboratively by James Maidment (Student’s Union UCL Sports Officer), Alexandra Darby (UCL Boat Club Rowing Secretary and member of the TeamUCL Inclusion Advisory Group) and Hattie Palmer (UCL Cricket Club Welfare Officer).