Former England cricketer Michael Vaughan has vehemently denied charges of explicit racism levied upon him by his former county teammate, Azeem Rafiq.
Azeem Rafiq had revealed that Michael Vaughan, back then, said- “there’s too many of you lot, we need to do something about it,” for him and atleast three other cricketers of Asian race.
Michael Vaughan counter-accuses Azeem Rafiq of using ‘race-card’
“I have a very clear mind about, back in 2009, that I know I didn’t say the words I’ve been alleged to have said. If you go through the history of me as a player, I don’t know of a time when I could put my teammates in a bad state of mind to go out and win a cricket match. That’s not what I’m about,” Vaughan was quoted as saying by The Guardian.
“In my dealings with Azeem, I was aware of two occasions in which he (directly or indirectly) acknowledged that he would be prepared to use the ‘race card’. By that, I understood Azeem to mean that he would make, or allude to, an allegation of racism in bad faith in order to gain an advantage. I asked Azeem, ‘And what will you do if Yorkshire don’t offer you a new contract?’ Azeem replied with words to the effect of, ‘I’ll just hit them with the race card’,” said Wood.
