Former England captain Micheal Vaughan said that he is “sorry” for the pain Azeem has gone while he also continued to deny the claims made by Azeem Rafiq.
Former England skipper Micheal Vaughan said that he is “sorry” for the pain that his county teammate Azeem Rafiq has gone through following the latter’s racism allegations.
Rafiq claimed that Vaughan told him and two other players of Asian origin that there were “too many of you lot, we need to do something about it” before a county game in 2009.
Vaughan denied the allegation by saying that he had never used those words for anyone.
“I’m sorry for the hurt (Azeem Rafiq) gone through. Time, I don’t think can ever be a healer in the situation that he’s gone through,”
he said during an interaction on BBC’s Breakfast podcast.
“But hopefully, time can be a way of us making sure that Yorkshire County Cricket Club never goes through this situation again and never puts themselves in a position of denial that they treated a player so badly.
“It hurts deeply, hurts me that a player has gone through so much and be treated so badly at the club I love,”
added Vaughan, who played 82 Tests, 86 ODIs, and 2 T20Is for England.
Rafiq’s claims were supported by former Pakistan pacer Rana Naveed and England leg-spinner Adil Rashid.
In 2010, he tweeted that
“Not many English people live in London… I need to learn a new language”
and in 2017, following the Manchester Arena bombing, he answered “yes” to a question of whether England is all-rounder Moeen Ali should ask Muslims if they are terrorists.
“I look back at my 12 years in social media, I regret many tweets,”
Vaughan said.
“I apologize deeply to anyone I offended with those tweets.
“We all make mistakes and, in my life, I’ve made quite a few mistakes on Twitter. I apologize for that, but I can’t suddenly get rid of it. That’s happened, but I think sometimes through social media, people can presume who you are and interpret who you are because of a tweet or two. I know who I am, and I hope the people around me, who were close to me, know exactly who I am.”