Essex have been charged by the Cricket Regulator with failing to handle alleged “systemic” racist language and conduct on the membership between 2001 and 2010.
The county have been charged with breaching Directive 3.3 of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).
The Cricket Regulator stated in a press release: “ECB Directive 3.3 issues conduct, acts or omissions which can be prejudicial to the pursuits of cricket or which can carry the sport of cricket or any cricketer or group of cricketers into disrepute.
“It’s alleged by the Cricket Regulator that there was systemic use of racist and/or discriminatory language and/or conduct at Essex, through the interval between 2001 and 2010, which Essex failed to handle.
“An impartial panel of the Cricket Self-discipline Fee will hear the case sooner or later.”
Essex stated they’d absolutely co-operated with the Cricket Regulator and would proceed to take action, and that they intend to “take part willingly” with the Cricket Self-discipline Fee which can hear the case.
In 2021 Essex commissioned an impartial report into allegations of racist language and conduct made by Jahid Ahmed, Zoheb Sharif and Maurice Chambers, which was carried out by Katharine Newton KC.
Her report, printed final December, discovered reference to gamers’ ethnic, racial and non secular origins was “totally normalised and tolerated behaviour” inside the dressing-room tradition at Essex between the mid-Nineteen Nineties till round 2013, underneath the misguided perception that it was acceptable ‘banter’.
Essex introduced in February they’d sanctioned people in reference to Newton’s findings, however didn’t identify them.
“Whereas the people usually are not named to align with the anonymised report, Essex CCC takes allegations of racism extraordinarily severely and the measures are an additional dedication to creating an inclusive and welcoming membership for everybody,” a press release from Essex on the time stated.
“Essex CCC have shared the measures with the England and Wales Cricket Board and reaffirms its pledge to selling equality, variety, and inclusion inside cricket to stop such incidents from occurring sooner or later.”
In July final yr, Yorkshire had been fined £400,000 – £300,000 suspended for 2 years – and docked 48 Championship factors and 4 within the T20 Blast over their dealing with of allegations of discrimination by former participant Azeem Rafiq, and a failure to handle the systemic use of racist and discriminatory language over a protracted interval between 2004 and 2021.
