Azeem rafiq

Friday

Tom Goodenough

The ridiculous rehabilitation of Azeem Rafiq

Has Azeem Rafiq been forgiven yet? He’s certainly working on it. After finding himself on both sides of a racism scandal, the former Yorkshire cricketer’s rehabilitation PR operation has been nothing if not swift. As the story broke last week that Rafiq had sent messages mocking Jewish people, he apologised immediately: ‘I am incredibly angry at myself and I apologise to the Jewish community’. The following day, in an interview with the Jewish Chronicle, Rafiq apologised again: ‘My genuine feeling is that I deserve the flak. I f***ed up’. ‘It’s for the Jewish community to decide whether you guys accept my apology,’ he added. Is this really how apologies now

Saturday

Jake Wallis Simons

How does Azeem Rafiq explain his past behaviour?

Azeem Rafiq is not having a good week. In addition to having to issue a grovelling apology for antisemitic messages, this morning it was reported in the Yorkshire Post that a mobile number belonging to him allegedly sent creepy sexual messages to a teenage girl, declaring a desire to ‘grab you push u up against wall and kiss you.’ In short, the former Yorkshire and England star has bizarrely managed to find himself at the centre a racism storm, an antisemitism storm and a sex storm all at once – as a victim in the first case and a perpetrator in the second. So far, Mr Rafiq hasn’t commented on the young woman’s allegations and

Thursday

Steerpike

Azeem Rafiq in anti-Semitism storm

Cricketer Azeem Rafiq shocked the political word on Tuesday with his revelations about the abuse he suffered while a young player at Yorkshire Cricket Club. But Mr S has now been sent social media posts which show Rafiq himself was no stranger to using racist language when young, with a leaked message revealing the former player posted anti-Semitic content on Facebook when he was 19 years old. Screenshots obtained by Steerpike show Rafiq joking about ‘a jew’ going ‘after my 2nds again ha’ as ‘only jews do tht sort of shit’ in 2011. He appears to be referencing an (unknown) cricketer at Derby, with a man by the name of