LONDON: Former England captain Michael Vaughan has been dropped from a BBC show after he was named in a report looking into allegations of institutional racism at Yorkshire made by former player Azeem Rafiq.
Vaughan has been working as an analyst on Test Match Special for 12 years on the BBC 5 Live’s ‘The Tuffers and Vaughan Cricket Show’. However, he will not appear in the show on Monday following allegations of racism by Azeem Rafiq.
In a column for ‘Daily Telegraph’, Vaughan admitted that he was the former player implicated in the investigation into Rafiq’s allegations of institutional racism at Yorkshire but “categorically” denied the charges and vowed to “fight” to clear his name.
The BBC in a statement said, “We take any allegations of racism extremely seriously. The allegation against Michael Vaughan pre-dates his time working for the BBC, we were not part of the investigation conducted by Yorkshire County Cricket Club and we have had no access to the subsequent report.”
“However, we were made aware of a single allegation which Michael strongly denies and we have been monitoring the situation closely,” the statement said, adding, “We have made the editorial decision that Michael won’t appear as a presenter on 5 Live’s Tuffers and Vaughan Show on Monday.”
Vaughan, who represented the county from 1991 until his retirement in 2009, apparently, told a group of Asian players, including Rafiq, “Too many of you lot, we need to do something about it.”
The alleged incident occurred as Yorkshire were taking the field during a match against Nottinghamshire in 2009, Rafiq’s maiden season as a professional. Yorkshire chairman Roger Hutton resigned earlier on Friday, accusing the club’s executives of failing to accept and learn from racism allegations raised by Rafiq.
The club said that Hanif Malik and Stephen Willis had also stepped down from its board and that Lord Kamlesh Patel had been appointed to replace Hutton.
Rafiq, a player of Pakistani descent and a former captain of the England Under-19s, said last year he was made to feel like an outsider at Yorkshire and contemplated taking his own life.
