LONDON: Former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan was cleared by a disciplinary panel on Friday of making a racist remark toward a group of Yorkshire teammates of Asian ethnicity in 2009, the latest stage of a scandal that has left a cloud over the English game.
The scandal erupted when Azeem Rafiq, a former player at Yorkshire, went public in 2020 saying he had been the victim of racial harassment and bullying across two spells at English cricket's most successful club between 2008-18.
Among his allegations, which were heard in the British parliament and led to Yorkshire losing sponsors and briefly the right to host international matches, Rafiq accused Vaughan of saying to Rafiq and other teammates of Asian ethnicity there were "too many of you lot, we need to have a word about that."
Vaughan was alleged to have commented on the sidelines of a Twenty20 match.
Vaughan categorically denied the charge, which was issued by the England and Wales Cricket Board, and it was dismissed as the Cricket Discipline Commission published its findings from a hearing involving Vaughan and other Yorkshire players accused of historic racist remarks.
"The panel is not satisfied on the balance of probabilities that these words were spoken by MV (Michael Vaughan) at the time and in the specific circumstances alleged," read the verdict in an 82-page document covering the entire case.
Vaughan, one of the most high-profile figures in English cricket, said on Twitter the last few years have been an "incredibly difficult period in my life" and that the process "has brought me to the brink of falling out of love with cricket."
After an investigation launched by Yorkshire in 2020, the club apologized for Rafiq being the victim of "racial harassment and bullying."
Seven of Rafiq's 43 claims were upheld in a report commissioned by Yorkshire but the full version of the report was not published and didn't lead to any of the club's hierarchy facing disciplinary action.
As a result, the ECB issued disrepute charges in June against seven individuals — including Vaughan — with prior connections to Yorkshire Cricket Club. The club was also charged.
Vaughan was the only individual to appear before the hearing.
In his statement on Friday, Vaughan said the verdict "must not be allowed to detract from the core message that there can be no place for racism in the game of cricket, or society generally."
And the CDC said the findings "do not in any way undermine the wider assertions made by" Rafiq, "many of which of course have been confirmed by the admissions of both YCCC (Yorkshire) and certain individuals."