UP412 Racists, riots and sport's Twitter exodus

“As soon as the Southport murders happened, the way Muslims specifically were targeted has made you question again whether we do belong, whether deep down in the end, we're always having to justify our existence,” says Azeem Rafiq, the former professional cricketer on today’s podcast. “On an individual level. I’m not sleeping, I’m patrolling around the house, covering letterboxes up, that sort of thing is what all of us have been doing, getting in touch with each other, making sure if you do have to go out, that people know where you are and you're on a very, very high alert.”

Today’s conversation is about the impact and implications of the racist rioting that followed the devastating and tragic murder of three children in Southport on July 29th.

Azeem Rafiq has written a book, called “It’s Not Banter, It’s Racism: What Cricket’s Dirty Secret Reveals About Our Society, records his experiences confronting institutional racism while a player at Yorkshire County Cricket Cub.

He is joined by Sanjay Bhandari MBE, who was appointed chair of Kick It Out the anti racism charity in 2019, from where he lobbies government and sports governing bodies for greater black and Asian representation across every level of football, and helped construct legislation for the new Online Safety Act, which was passed earlier this year. 

We talk about the role of Twitter and it’s owner Elon Musk, the role of sports governing bodies and their sponsors, and we ask, for all the talk of it’s power to influence societal change, does sport really matter?

Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry.
To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartner

We publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. 

These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. 

Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. 

Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. 

If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.

Transcript

Racism, riots and should sport still be on Twitter?

[00:00:00] Azeem Rafiq: as soon as the Southport murder happened the way Muslims specifically were targeted has made you question again whether we do belong whether deep down in the end, we're always having to justify our existence.

[00:00:14] On an individual level. Just not sleeping, patrolling around the house, covering letterboxes up, that, that sort of thing is what all of us have been doing, really, getting in touch with each other, making sure if you do have to go out, that people know where you are and you're very, very, you know, on a high alert. 

[00:00:32] Richard Gillis Unofficial Partner: That was Azeem Rafiq, the former professional cricketer. Talking about the impact and the implications of the racist rioting that followed the devastating and tragic murder of three children in south port on July the 29th. Rafiq has written a book called it's not banter it's racism. 

[00:00:48] What Cricket's dirty secret reveals about our society which records his experiences confronting , institutional racism, while player Yorkshire county cricket club. Is joined by Sanjay Bhandari, MBE, who was appointed chair of kicking out the anti-racism charity in 2019. Where he lobbies government and football governing bodies. For greater black and Asian representation across every level of football. 

[00:01:12] And he helped construct legislation for the new online safety act, which passed earlier this year. So we talk about the role of Twitter. And it's controversial owner, Elon Musk, the role of sports governing bodies and their sponsors. And then we ask for all the talk of its power to influence social change. The sport really matter. 

[00:01:31] I'm Richard Gillis. This is Unofficial Partner. 

[00:01:41] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: Sanjay, I wanna read a bit of what you wrote. on our WhatsApp group, just to give us a framing. The I've been going to football for over 40 years, and I'm due to go to four matches in the first week of the season. For the first time in decades, I'm thinking twice about

[00:01:55] going and slightly concerned for my safety this week. I went out for the first time since the riots and felt unusual trepidation. My head was down. I avoided eye contact, but my ears were pricked. I was hypervigilant to threat. I avoided walking down certain streets if I felt there were not enough or too many people around.

[00:02:12] Logically, I could see that each of those feelings was irrational, but the instinct was visceral. And it was perfectly logical. prompted by the very fear that the riots were designed to create. So that really resonated with me when I read it on, I think it was Saturday morning. So thank you. I want to just start off. What's it been like? How have you felt the last couple of weeks? Let's just talk about that before we get to, there's, there's a few different questions that I want to put to both of you, but just give me a sense of what it's been like for you.

[00:02:44] Sanjay Bhandari, Kick It Out: Should I go first or do you want to go first Azim?

[00:02:46] Azeem Rafiq: I can go first. I mean, firstly, I'd like to, on the back of what Sanjay's just said there, I don't think them feelings were irrational, actually. I think that they are the feelings that all of us have had over the last couple of weeks. It's, it's weird for me, like, because I've already, it felt like I've been prepared for it.

[00:03:05] Having gone through the whole speaking out at Yorkshire and the backlash that came with it, eventually ending up leaving the country in a way. For me, watching what's played out is something I've already used to, but You know, even then, the fear, the anxieties, the unknown, changing the way you go about, what a coincidence that we've ended up, we're here while this is going on has been terrifying.

[00:03:32] And I think the effects of the last two weeks is going to be hard to recover from for a lot of people. I think, That the way it's, it's happened and the level, 

[00:03:43] Azeem Rafiq: as soon as the Southport murder happened the way Muslims specifically were targeted has 

[00:03:49] Azeem Rafiq: sort of 

[00:03:50] Azeem Rafiq: made you question again whether we do belong whether deep down in the end, we're always having to justify our existence.

[00:03:59] Azeem Rafiq: Yeah, I think, on a, 

[00:04:01] Azeem Rafiq: on an individual level. Just not sleeping, patrolling around the house, covering letterboxes up, that, that sort of thing is what all of us have been doing, really, getting in touch with each other, making sure if you do have to go out, that people know where you are and you're very, very, you know.

[00:04:18] Um, 

[00:04:18] on a high alert. 

[00:04:19] Azeem Rafiq: So yeah, it's been, it feels like it's just all sort of happened so quickly. And then it feels like everyone's now gone on to the next news story so quickly. And I think that's when we get into further into conversation. The reality is that we need to deal with what's just taken place.

[00:04:37] Sanjay Bhandari, Kick It Out: Yeah, very similar. I mean, obviously some of the emotion and how I felt is summed up in that paragraph you read and, and I'll sort of publish that in a, in a sort of blog on LinkedIn and and I have quite a few people just really reaching out. And, and commenting or talking, talking to me separately and lots of members of my family saying, well, actually, yeah, that's exactly how I felt.

[00:04:58] And that's how I've been feeling and we've been thinking twice about going out or we've not been going out, and, and I mean, over the whole, 10 days or whatever it is since it started. It feels a bit like a sort of grief cycle, really, there's the initial sort of shock and there's anger and there's fear and there's rationalization and then there's a little bit of hope as well at the end of that, right?

[00:05:19] Okay, so the sort of the initial shock at Just the scale of what was going on and the anger at the lies on which it was built and that this had been stoked and the people stoking it or fleeing outside the jurisdiction so that they can't be, touched, leaving everyone else to take the consequences of This disorder built on their lies.

[00:05:44] And then yeah, I was planning to have a couple of weeks off on a staycation and then, August I quite often just You know, I take it easy. I only have emergency meetings. So I hadn't planned to go out. I wasn't sort of staying in. I was just, wasn't planning to go out. I was gonna put my feet up and watch the Olympics.

[00:06:02] And then that bit of fear kicked in on the first day I actually just had to go out because I mean, bizarre, I'm in Covent Garden. That paragraph I described, I'm walking around Covent Garden, I'm actually going to get my hair cut, and the other thought that crossed my head when I wrote the paragraph that I wrote about was, I'm gonna have my hair cut, maybe I should get my beard shaved off so I'll look less like a Muslim.

[00:06:26] I'm not a Muslim. But I experience Islamophobia, particularly when there's, if there's a terrorist incident, I know the next day I will experience some Islamophobia from on public transport, but it affects my behavior. I don't go on public transport. I will go in the car and I'll make sure the distances I walk are shorter.

[00:06:41] I'm careful where I'm going. And even the fact that I had that thought about should I shave my beard off? I mean, it's just, these are ridiculous things, right? But they're real. Because that's the way you think that sort of trust that you have that has built up over years where you think, yeah, I'm okay here.

[00:06:57] I'm safe here. I've done okay. I'm accepted. Yeah, but when I'm walking down the street, people don't see all those other things. They just see the color of your skin. That's what that's all some people see. And I'm exactly the same as everyone else at that point, right? I'm nobody. And so the feeling I was kind of describing, I suppose, was.

[00:07:19] Wanting to just melt into the background and not be seen. So that you're just not noticed and then, and then we had, the, the sort of things like Walthamstow and some of the other things that were going on around the country where the anti fascists were gathering. And those, those kinds of things give you hope.

[00:07:34] And then, you go out every couple of days and I'm, I was out on Saturday, I did go to football on Saturday. I'm due to go, I'm trying to get around the 92, so I'm trying to go to a couple of league one grounds this week and they're the ones where I'm making me think, am I going to be a safe?

[00:07:47] I don't know. But I'm going to go because that's what I do. It's like, I'm not going to let it stop me. I'm still going to go.

[00:07:54] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: It's incredible, isn't it? When you, when you sort of articulate in that way, with both of you, there feels like there's an absence of surprise when something, know, whatever we say is the trigger Southport, you're expecting a reaction?

[00:08:08] Is that what you're saying?

[00:08:10] Azeem Rafiq: I mean, I didn't expect that at all to be honest. That's not something that any I don't, I mean, I personally wasn't expecting anything like that, but you saw it building and it just all happened so quickly. And I think it was a bit of a blur as to how quickly it escalated. But what's not surprising is, , the intent this was coming for a long time, something like this, because I think in this country, we're very, very good at. flash moments, George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, and we've seen it with, , some of the, , anti fascist demonstrations to counteract what's taken place, , there's big sort of commitments, etc. But in the background, this, , the Islamophobia. The racism through, , media, commentators, politicians mainstream has been normalized over a period of time.

[00:09:00] And, I, I went on Newsnight on Monday and actually it's not just been normalized, it's been, greenlighted, endorsed, and there's, there's this thing, this thing you can get away with, not in the way, you Some other forms of discrimination you wouldn't be able to get away with, but with Islamophobia and racism , it has been, and I think language in the end transformed into consequences and actions. And that's what took place. You could see. You could see very early on what people wanted that person to be, , they wanted, the ideal situation was they wanted it to be a Muslim person, they wanted it to be a migrant, they wanted it to be someone who's crossed the channel and in that sort of flurry that these, right wing these comment extremist they got a lot of misinformation out there and suddenly you just saw a platform that is. Clearly built on hate just exaggerate that and it just went far and wide and people then took it into their own hands and went out and did that. In some ways, , those out there on the streets who did the stuff, they're easy to hold accountable. Very easy to hold them accountable.

[00:10:09] There's enough cameras, , the actions are there. But it's the ones that incited it. Until we deal with that, we, we, I think what it's made us realize, or it has to me anyway that we, we are an incident away from being targeted for being black and brown in this country. We are, and that's the underlying issue we have to deal with, but I think the way it just escalated was definitely a surprise.

[00:10:34] Thanks.

[00:10:34] Sanjay Bhandari, Kick It Out: I think yeah, it's sort of shocking, but not surprising. Okay. The scale and speed of it is maybe shocking, but the fact that it occurred is not surprising. It's a bit more like, if you live with a relative or friend that's got a terminal illness and the end is going to come and you don't know quite when, but when it comes, it's still a shock and it still hurts.

[00:10:57] And actually, I kind of felt that something like this was coming and something was going to happen because the political mood music was sort of leading up to it and there are agitators out there that are agitating. It's for it. I suppose. And also having seen it, I mean, the reality is that, these things probably happen.

[00:11:14] They seem to go in a cycle of every 10 years. And I go right back to the 1970s and remember these things happening in the 1970s. And, and, and all the way through 80s, you have the poll tax rights, we had we had obviously BLM a few years ago. We had riots back in 2011. So these things do happen. They always happen in summer, by the way.

[00:11:36] They always happen, generally happen in late summer because that's just the way, that's just the way these things seem to work with the heat gets people agitated and they're in there and, and riots are they're a bizarre social phenomenon because of the way in which they, happen, right?

[00:11:53] And there will be multiple groups that are involved and multiple cohorts of people that are involved that create a riot and they always are, right? And what happens is afterwards is that the political framing is, is done in a way that everything is done, which is we don't say, see, We don't see the world the way that it is.

[00:12:16] We see the world the way that we are. And so the interpretation of the rights after the event is always coloured by, well, who's the person doing the interpreting? And so people who were, on the one hand, during the BLM riots, saying these are criminals and thugs and we shouldn't engage with the, whatever their underlying grievances.

[00:12:37] Now saying, well actually this is about an underlying grievance and we should focus on the underlying grievance. And by the way, the same people who are saying now this is criminality and thuggery and we shouldn't focus on the underlying grievance back during BLM would have been saying we should focus on the underlying grievance because that's about the political order.

[00:12:56] What it does feel in terms of, the visceral emotional feel of being a brown person in this environment, I can't speak for being a Muslim because I think that's different. There is a taint of Islamophobia. This is, this is driven by Islamophobia. Much of it is driven by people with an Islamophobic background.

[00:13:17] Agenda is that it's of all those rights you're seeing over 40, 50 years, this feels much more like the 1970s to me. It feels more like that feeling of feeling unwelcome and that feeling of fear. I haven't felt that, I don't think, when I talk to people, it doesn't feel like that. Since the late seventies, early eighties, the sort of when you had things like Hemsworth and Toxton and, and, and Brixton rights in the late seventies and early eighties.

[00:13:42] And always feel that undercurrents there. I mean, I, I was born and brought up in Wolverhampton, one of my local MP. I was born in 1968. I was born about a month and a half after Enoch Pell's rivers and blood speech. Enoch Pell was a local MP in my city. Right. So these kinds of feelings, this stuff is sort of like, it's trapped through your life.

[00:14:00] So. There's almost a sort of barometer of how do I feel on that Enoch scale? Am I back in the seventies or am I in the nineties or where am I? Right. And this is, this feels much more like it's sort of late seventies is the, is the feeling.

[00:14:16] Azeem Rafiq: I think just, just to come in there as well this does, it has happened before and as Sanjay mentioned in 80s, there's a documentary that came out recently on Channel 4 called Defiance, British agents fighting the far right in the 70s and 80s. And I watched that a few months ago, bearing in mind I moved to the UK in 2001, didn't know that history. And I listened to it, I watched it, and the political language, the rhetoric was so same, so similar. When I spoke to the guys who were in the documentary, I said to them, There's a lot that's changed, but a lot that hasn't. Maybe nowadays we don't get, petrol bombs through the letterbox, or, Being murdered on the streets.

[00:14:57] And I say that maybe, maybe I don't know about it, but it's not like that. But we get it a lot more covertly through our workplaces and in our institutions. Little did I know after watching that and three months after, and I think Channel four are re-putting it out there this week, I think tonight.

[00:15:13] Or Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday for sure. And I think everyone needs to watch that. And how even then. It was the people that came out and had to take it, take it upon themselves to be able to justify their existence. And that's where it's taken us back to, we, we heard, I mean, I watched it through that documentary, but then I've been lucky enough to have met people who live through that time now. And they, a lot of them, when I spoke to them last week, they said, this was our everyday avoiding certain roads, going to school from certain places, making sure our women don't. Go on certain streets, making sure no one's out late at night. And that's where it took us back to until sort of the response. But I think the, the effect of it is going to be left then, feeling that, I've seen so many sort of tweets, LinkedIn posts of people starting to justify what they bring to this country. And actually that's, In a way by even doing that you're more or less sort of, legitimizing. In any, that this is all right in any capacity. And I think that's the most important thing. And I, for what it's worth credit where it's due, I think it's been handled from a political sense. I do feel like it's been handled in the best way it could have been. Whereas there hasn't been a pandering, there's been a clear direction of, this is not something we're going to stand for and it has give, the community a bit more reassurance, but, these things do happen.

[00:16:41] But. There's no way that in 2024 we should be, putting, covering our letterboxes, that, that should tell us that we've not really dealt with dealt with our challenges in the way we should have. Yeah,

[00:16:54] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: Sanjay, I've got a question, which is about football and its relationship. Obviously, given your day job at, kick it out. What, what do we know about this? Cause I've seen, you'll have read many reports. I was reading a load of stuff over the weekend and I myself wrote, a newsletter linking those two things, went back to Ted Croker, you know, all all that, all of that. Stuff. What, what do we know? What's the connection? Just take us inside that conversation.

[00:17:21] Sanjay Bhandari, Kick It Out: Well, look, of course, what we have seen is that some of those writers are right on the streets wearing football shirts. And so, of course, that's a first and obvious connection that people make that connection. We have the history as well, that particularly in the seventies and eighties.

[00:17:38] The football grounds were a recruiting ground for the far right, particularly the, the national front and selling bulldog outside football grounds. Now, football has done a great job over 20 years in addressing and routing out and challenging. Extremism in football and, and, and in that way, in a way, social media has probably helped them because standing outside of football ground, if you think about it from the fascist perspective, it's a, it's an inefficient recruitment mechanism.

[00:18:15] because you're not quite sure who's coming across. Whereas social media is an incredibly efficient recruitment mechanism because you can have people pre qualify in by reaching out to your content. So, it seems that social media is much more the recruiting ground these days. I think where there seems to have been some suggestions of some links and, and I think there was an academic again on Newsnight last week talking about connections with people who were previously.

[00:18:43] Season ticket holders and they've got football banning orders. And there are a number of those people that are involved. And my understanding from what I'm reading in the papers is that the authorities are encouraging, the football authorities, if there are any, People that are convicted, that have criminal activities around the riots, that if they've not already got a banning order and they're involved in football, that they're working in football, or that they're, a member or a season ticket holder, that they will be banned from those clubs.

[00:19:12] And I suspect that is a, they're pushing on an open door there at football, but football will respond positively in that way. And I think in a way, this is one of the things that is different to the seventies and eighties, and I'm getting the seventies and eighties, it's, it's. One of the reasons why Kick It Out was formed in the early 90s was because there wasn't this acceptance in football, that there was a problem that football needed to deal with.

[00:19:36] Obviously, Ted Croker did it in, in quite a pithy way. This is a society problem. It isn't just a football problem, but it does play out in football. And so, and football acts as an accelerator. It's the real world on steroids. And so, Because of the tribal nature of it, we're gonna, and the, and the needle and banter that's associated with the game, we're gonna attract we, we historically attracted sort of elements like this.

[00:20:00] And so it does have a greater responsibility, but I think one of the differences now is that football has kind of led the way in many ways, in Tackling discrimination and, and, and they're engaged. And I don't think this would be a difficult conversation for governments to have. I don't think it's a difficult conversation for us to have, me saying, I think people convicted of, with criminal, of criminal conduct in relation to these rights that they shouldn't be setting foot in a sports venue.

[00:20:30] I think that will be, I think football would respond relatively positively to that. I'm not sure about other sports venues. And actually, how do you enforce them? Those become quite difficult. How do you enforce banning orders anyway with, with sharing of data and how do you enforce it across sports? But I think that's the link with football.

[00:20:45] I don't get any sense that far right extremism has been penetrating football. Deeper in recent years if anything, the opposite. But there is that historical association.

[00:20:58] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: What about the corporate bit of it? We've both, again, at various times over the last few days, people say, Oh, well, sponsors should, Do this. and football should do that. We'll get, so it's a Twitter thing. It's Musk. He's one of the agitators. He's doing it for commercial reasons. Should, could football, sport, make a statement. And say, well, actually this is a line in the sand, enough's enough, let's stop using it. And what, what do you think about that? Cause it's a complicated or can be complex. It can be simple actually, but it's

[00:21:35] Sanjay Bhandari, Kick It Out: I mean, historically, actually, I've been a bit, a bit a bit more skeptical of boycotts because I'm not sure how much, how effective they are. Right. And

[00:21:46] particularly when,

[00:21:47] I remember when we did a social media boycott a few years ago, and we had, I remember having the conversations and saying, well, there's 4000 professional footballers in the UK.

[00:21:56] Right. And if they all come off Twitter, but, or, or Facebook handle Facebook, Facebook has 3 billion users and Twitter has 300 million and you're 4, 000, they don't notice. Right. And I think that was at the time when I think Birmingham city and had come off and ranges have come up, but they didn't tell anyone.

[00:22:16] So no one notices saying, well, if you're going to come off, we've got to come off and we've got to make a big song and dance about it. And we've got to encourage the sponsors to come off. And so we had a weekend. It was quite a big weekend a few years ago. I think it was a Maybank holiday. And I think the championship, the Premier League, there was a potential for a team to win the Premier League that weekend.

[00:22:35] But Sky came off and Adidas came off. And, but part of what I said was actually, we need to announce it and we need to try and get the partners. And they did. That you roll forward now. A few years. I think there's a few different things happening. I think one platform is so much worse than the others.

[00:22:56] Twitter is so much worse. My experience of working, trying to work with Meta and TikTok and Google is they will engage with you. And I think they genuinely feel like they want to do something. They do have some challenges, but you get a sense that they genuinely want to engage with Twitter. That is not my experience.

[00:23:15] They don't really want to engage. I believe that the people we can connect with here in the UK are honest, genuine people and they genuinely wanna make a difference. And they genuinely, empathize with what we might say on behalf of our beneficiaries. But as I've said to them, I'm not doubt you.

[00:23:34] But what will happen is you'll go back inside and you'll say maybe, and California will say no. And it will, because this is coming from the top, the nature of the platform has changed. It's the irony that when Musk took over Twitter in October 2022, it's nearly two years ago now, he said two things.

[00:23:52] One, he announced himself as Chief Twith. And, and secondly, he said, I don't want it to become some kind of hellscape where it's a free for all with no consequences. Well, of course the only promise there he's kept is to become Chief Twit and probably, maybe the vowel in the middle ought to change.

[00:24:10] He's definitely Chief something beginning with T. And I think the nature of that platform has just altered so radically that he's not a neutral platform owner. He is a political protagonist and he's expressing his political view. So he has no problem within the one breath saying that we're a freedom of speech platform.

[00:24:31] And yet someone then responds in a tweet to him with just the word cisgender. And then that comes automatically with a warning that this will be. Sort of de prioritized because of their anti woke rules. I mean, so I think there's a moral case for why we should probably come off. Right. Because again, we're coming up to black history month.

[00:24:55] We're going to be lots of organizations going to be promoting their black history month activities. Should we be doing that on X where every piece of engagement. Benefits, X, and Benefits, Musk. I feel very uncomfortable with that. So I really think this is the time for sport and its commercial partners to come up for the moral case.

[00:25:18] But there's probably a business case anyway, which is doing enough damage to the brand. And, by suing advertisers, he's already sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate, who were trying to hold him to account and his case got thrown out. This is using slap suits to quieten people with whom he disagrees.

[00:25:37] And so I think maybe the commercial case is already being made anyway because I'm not sure sponsors how much they want to be. Attached to him and how much they want to their content, how much they want their brand associated with content that the kind of stuff that is now proliferating on on X.

[00:25:54] So it may be that this is that moment. And yeah, that's certainly a question I've posed and I think now is the time for people to be coming up and it's time to be for not just sport for its commercial sponsors to be saying We should come off him at the very least you should come off a black history month.

[00:26:11] It would just be completely inappropriate for you to be To be advertising your black history month activities on this platform where we are not welcome

[00:26:20] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: what do you think about that? There's a lot in that, but just in terms of the, it feels like a moment, but we've had moments before, but.

[00:26:28] Azeem Rafiq: I mean, a lot really. Actually, one of the notes before coming, I don't normally make notes coming into anything, but I, this is such an important issue and I feel so strongly about it because, again, I've been going through it. When there is, A situation like this, everyone, everyone is interested, there's a real will to do stuff, but look at Black Lives Matter and look where, before this happened, pretty much everyone was going in the other direction.

[00:26:58] And that's, one sort of, if I was to say off the back of what's happened is to everyone is take a step back. And whatever the action is, it's got to be authentic and it's got to be long lasting. It can't be, Oh, look at us. We're brilliant. We made a stance. And then six months later, when everyone's getting on with our life, looking the other way or, we we've missing out on a hundred thousand pounds and we need it.

[00:27:21] So we're going to go back on. So whatever the response is, it's got to be authentic from top down in your organization, in your environment. So whatever you do, it's long lasting and it's, it's tangible because again, that social media blackout we had a few years ago, brilliant for, I think it was a day or a weekend, everyone sort of went into it, getting, coming back a few days later, the reality is they're now gonna, they need to recover the money that they've lost. So there's going to be more, more hate and Twitter has got just, I mean, it's just got to a place where it's, I mean, it's horrific. It's, it's, you could put, this is South Asian Heritage Month, the hashtag of South Asian Heritage Month this year is free to be me. And we haven't been able to be free to leave the house. That's the reality and Twitter has played its part in it in a big way. There is absolutely no two ways about it. I don't even know whether, I mean, I don't know him enough or, know about him enough. I don't even know whether that is his views or not. But the reality is the minute he posts stuff like that in a situation where his words could affect lives, he's going to get massive engagement, which is going to monetize.

[00:28:31] It is monetizing hate. So I think Twitter is one part of it, but I'd go a bit further in that. I think the brands, broadcasters where the money comes into sports, they need to start holding governing bodies. They need to start holding. Holding decision makers to way more account than they do throughout the years.

[00:28:53] And again, I'll give you the example because it's close to me is, when we had the situation at Yorkshire, it took 14 months for any of them sponsors to wake up. And then over 48 hours, everyone left. And then, so now you've, in your watch, this is going on and you were looking the other way.

[00:29:11] Yeah. Then over 48 hours when it got that big that it was going to affect your brand, everyone went. And then, things have died down, everyone's got on with their life, things have happened, Colin Girths comes back and, you've come back. And it's like, you've, whatever you do, it's got to be authentic and tangible.

[00:29:29] You, we can't have a situation like we had where people are doing things, but they don't quite understand what they're doing. And then when it comes to that first challenge, the, the, the sort of route back to business as usual, Sanjay's got a lot more experience of this than me, but it, I think that's, that would be my sort of encouragement to people listening.

[00:29:50] The gut, the brands and the broadcasters, they've got to really take this on because, the reality is people make decisions on where the money is coming from. And if they decide and go, right, these are our non negotiables. You cannot, if you are attached to us, you cannot be on X. There is no way anyone will go on X.

[00:30:12] It's just as simple as that because that's where the money, the broadcasters and the brands decide where, where, where we go in sports. So I would absolutely encourage everyone to have a real think about whether, that is a platform that aligns with your values, or are you just on there to whatever you're on there to do.

[00:30:30] But, if you are saying that we want everyone welcomed here. Then I think the conversation's got to be had, as Sanjay says, there's Black History Month coming, South Asian Heritage Month right now, but every day of the week, if you post anything, Anything positive, no engagement. You get involved in a conversation that's even remotely debatable.

[00:30:53] All you get is racist abuse. You just get abuse. And there is just no way of, you can, the energy that needs to be put into track people down and stuff, but is that really solving the problem? Sanjay's worked on this a lot more than I have. And I think it's at a time where either people have to be identified, So there's consequences, direct consequences, or we've got to go and be on something a lot nicer.

[00:31:19] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: the sponsor thing is interesting. We're deep into the era of brand purpose, so on the sponsor side, if you go to something like the CanLion advertising awards, you can't move for brands taking positions on various subjects and some of them are fashionable, some of them have been there for a while, but quite often, to your point, how authentic is this, and then you've got the other question that if we do it, We're just going to criticize for virtue signaling.

[00:31:50] And I'm just wondering, you mentioned at the beginning there about George Floyd Sanjay, what the, what the longer term lesson of that period has been, because I remember having conversations, it's a different context, obviously, but , the calls for brands to take stands and, and words like authenticity were banded around them.

[00:32:08] We were said, right. Okay. Yes. Now that this is look, look what they're doing. I'm wondering what the longer term impact. Of that has been, 

[00:32:16] Sanjay Bhandari: My suspicion is negligible because when 

[00:32:20] we look back whether, and this is not just a sport thing, this is every industry, everyone is very very quick to advertise their credentials and their signal their virtue by condemning or expressing solidarity.

[00:32:35] But really, what you should be doing is looking at your organization and your industry and saying, where does that inequality play out in my organization and in my industry? And how can I take substantive steps to make a difference? That's four years ago now. What tangible change have we seen for our black colleagues or for any other underrepresented or minority communities in any of those sports or industries?

[00:33:02] Not just sports, , it's every industry that leapt to virtue signal. What change did you create? Some initiatives have been created, but did they change outcomes? How hard did you push it? And this is one of the challenges I can remember at the time with people I won't name them, but some high profile celebrities jumping in and suddenly taking a stand on some of this stuff.

[00:33:26] And saying, well, congratulations. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining in. Make sure you stick with us when the crowd's gone away, right? Because we're going to hold you account for being part of the journey now. You've said you're part of this. This is a journey isn't, you know, things won't change just because you said.

[00:33:43] This is what we need to do because you're a very confident person. It won't change because these things are stubborn and some of these problems have existed for 30, 40, 50 years. If I, you know, look at my sports in football. The absence of black coaches, the lack of South Asian players, both of those in the men's game and in the women's game, the lack of black and safe Asian players and the boardrooms being predominantly white and male.

[00:34:10] Those, those things have existed for 40, 50 years and they haven't changed substantially and they're still not changing. We will have another moment like this which will make us reflect and say we need to do more. But the reality is, what's really going to change things like that? It's more likely to be something like the football governance bill where you can mandate.

[00:34:31] Some of this stuff in the Code for Football Governance, that's more likely to change it than a moment because the moments are fleeting and they rarely become enduring movements. We should use the moments like this to flag the issues and to call for people to do better. But I, I think, I think that when you reflect on George Floyd and Black Lives 

[00:34:55] Azeem Rafiq: Matter and the follow up, it doesn't feel like there's been a huge change.

[00:35:00] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: you, you asked a really quite a, the key question, I think it was, does, does sport really matter that can it make a difference? And again, we spend a lot of time talking about sports impact in various ways. This is the final question for both of you really is, do you think that it does have a tangible impact in this debate?

[00:35:20] We're talking about a really big subject here. We're talking about racism in Britain, talking about society, and Quite often I question, I think sport quite often over claims its position. That's my, my starting place. I, I think that as a whole, it's just too easier. It's become almost a cliche that it can impact various bits of society.

[00:35:42] What do you think? What's, are you losing confidence in sports ability to, to impact real change in society?

[00:35:49] Azeem Rafiq: I mean, I'll go first. I think it's massively overplayed. I think at its best. It's beautiful. There's absolutely no doubt about it. I think naturally as human beings, we try and hold on to hope. But I think we, especially in this country, I think we're naive in the way we look at a lot of these situations.

[00:36:09] And I think, Sanjay's talked about, board positions, et cetera, we look at the superficial stuff that makes us look good as a response, as opposed to actually getting down and staying in that, Sanjay does it day in, day out, last few years of my life I've been pretty much dedicated to this and then I, we're in that cycle, we've had the outrage, we've had the solidarity, we're waiting for the we've seen the quick shift towards positivity, you know, Which positivity is nice, but you know, which is now going into a bit of naivety, we'll have a few initiatives announced and in a few months it will be all forgotten and the challenge, it's an incredible challenge because sometimes the very person that will end up supporting you, their own organization will have underlying issue of it.

[00:36:59] So people, when, until they're confronted with it themselves. Everyone's very good at, or this is, they should, I've had conversations with people, or this is what they should do. This is what they should do. And then two weeks later, they, they end up in the same situation where, you know, one of their employees has challenged them and their response is not too dissimilar.

[00:37:18] I think. If we're going to really get structural change this time around or, in this, we've got to stay in this. When it gets boring, when there's a new news story, when there's a lot of exciting stuff happening, it's the, that's where you've got to sort of be in that and be a bit unapologetic about it because I think the reality is are we going to get rid of racism?

[00:37:40] Probably not. But we need to move the dial where we're looking at the structural stuff a lot more, things that are not, ethnicity pay is a very good example. That is not something that's mandatory at the minute. You could as an organization do that tomorrow. And actually that, that would start to show you transparently to the, to the outer.

[00:38:03] So it's hard to paper over that with initiatives that make you look great. And a lot of these responses we'll see will be, like PR sort of responses, and I would encourage everyone again, to don't, to not do that. If I said this to Sanjay before, if my son has a maths lesson at school, they don't put a press release out saying we've had a maths lesson.

[00:38:24] So why is it when it comes to education around these issues, the first thing, any club, any governing body that, oh, we've done educational program this week. We have to get away from what looks good to what actually is going to start to make a difference. And that's got to be more in the structure.

[00:38:41] And, in my book, I've talked about three aspects, but the one that I want to touch on before Sanjay is the most uncomfortable one that no one deals with, is accountability. And I, this is why I do praise what's, what's happened here by the government and their response. There's got to be red lines.

[00:38:58] If you cross certain lines, there's got to be accountability because, if your response to something like that this week, or come on, let's have a conversation, which is what a lot of moderates or people sitting on in the middle of all sides do, or let's have a conversation, all you're doing is that telling everyone, well, if you have a problem, go out and burn stuff, go out and smash things up, and that'll be your way to having a conversation.

[00:39:26] There's got to be clear accountability and create clear red lines that can't be crossed and should not be crossed. And, but they're uncomfortable for sports and sports governing bodies to sport England. I'd say, we need to look at where the sport is governed properly, full stop, and, the underlying issues, whether boards and the way boards operate is that really the right way to get cultural change?

[00:39:50] Because, boards never get anywhere near the dressing rooms. So there's a lot of different aspects of it, but it needs people and sport to be able to hear the uncomfortable bits and us as a society, to be able to hear the uncomfortable bits when it's boring. Cause suddenly having these conversations before this started and it's like, well, no, and.

[00:40:09] The response you get is, oh, come on, this has happened, this initiative has happened, that initiative has happened, but these are all the easy things we have to get into the tough stuff and that, that is around education, that is around opportunity, and that is around accountability but it's the structural stuff and understand that we are all on a journey, and that's alright, to understand and accept that none of us are perfect is actually a good starting point.

[00:40:33] So, to your question, I think I like to hold on to that hope, personally. I do like to hold on to hope because I think it is the one thing that at its best can get us all in the same space. Lawyers, accountants taxi drivers, restaurant owners. It's the one thing that, can bring us all into a same space.

[00:40:57] And I think that's, what's needed is trying to bring us into the same space to have these conversations in a bit more authentic manner. So I'd like to hold on to hope but I think it needs better leadership. It needs a lot more direct interventions at the structural level, as opposed to the superficial stuff.

[00:41:14] 

[00:41:14] Sanjay Bhandari: back to your question, Richard, which is probably the question I asked as well. At the weekend, does sport really matter? And, you know, I agree with you, Richard, that, that, I think sport exaggerates its impact but like many industries exaggerating its impact, but probably sports slightly more than others because it occupies so much of our time and so much of our emotional energy in the way that, you know, being an accountant doesn't, right?

[00:41:41] It's just like no one, I'm sure no one, not even Kieran, uh, uh, is, is, is passionate about being an accountant, right? And, makes them excited when they wake up in the morning, uh, even when he gets his company's house alert. , so sports, of course, it has the potential to have this impact beyond the four walls of the sport because it engages so much of our time, energy and emotional attention that it has that potential.

[00:42:17] it's got to go back to the old cliche, which I think he's a Pope John Paul II quote, isn't it? About, but sport doesn't matter. But of all the unimportant things in life, it's the most important. And it often does feel that way. And like I say, I think it is getting overblown.

[00:42:30] I think even Thomas Barker in his, in his closing ceremony speech. Hinted at the incredible impact, the potential impact of sport and the Olympics. And people like me go, well, why, how, show me, show, don't tell me, show me. And I often feel with the impact of sport that it's a bit similar to meritocracy.

[00:42:50] You know, because we want to live in a meritocracy and because we live in a society that undoubtedly pursues meritocracy in the west, we assume that we live in a meritocracy. That's not true. We don't live in a meritocracy. Meritocracy is about the things that you do that demonstrate that you live in a meritocracy, you know, whether it's open and transparent recruitment processes and.

[00:43:13] Taking bias outta things. That's how you demonstrate to me that you live in a meritocracy and the out you change the outcomes. But simply saying that we live in one or we live in a fairer society, doesn't mean that we do. Or simply because you pursue one doesn't mean that we do. And I often feel that way about sport, that we think because we're pursuing it and because we have these values, therefore we must be having this impact.

[00:43:37] And I'm raising the question because of does it matter? Because I think it has the potential to. Because it can create those incredible magical moments. That is what sport is built around magical moments. And can you turn that feeling of unity that you get in those moments into something much more enduring?

[00:43:56] So I feel a bit sorry for your listeners, cause they might be feeling this is a bit of a council of despair. So, and I, 

[00:44:04] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: Don't, don't, don't worry about them. I know, I know. I never worry. I never worry about them. So just, don't give them a second thought, they'll

[00:44:10] take what they're given, frankly. 

[00:44:12] Azeem Rafiq: I think

[00:44:12] Sanjay, with him bringing the Olympics up, I think that is a great example of, we've had an Olympics there where Muslim women have not been not being able to wear the hijab in a country. And, everyone has sort of just gone by it and, got on with it.

[00:44:27] And that's where. Leading up to that Olympics, everyone, in my opinion, should have gone, actually, if this doesn't change, we're not playing, we're not playing a part. And that's where sport could have made the biggest impact. Because the reality is they would have got it shifted. Everyone would have had to shift, in that such a big manner, people could have, if they wanted to, could have made a big difference.

[00:44:52] So, I think that, but again, on that, does sport matter? What I would, what I would say is that sport has an opportunity here to lead the way. And this is where I challenge the leaders to go take this upon themselves to go, you know what, we're not just going to sit back and go, well, this is a societal problem.

[00:45:11] Look over there. Don't look at me because this is going to land at your doorstep. This is the issue of our time and it will land at your doorstep. So I would actually say to them, whether they think it matters or it doesn't, they have an opportunity to lead by what Sanjay just said, actions. And actions will always speak louder than any press release.

[00:45:30] Sorry, Sanjay. 

[00:45:31] Sanjay Bhandari: I mean, of course, we had the amazing action on the, on the, during the closing ceremony of Saffan Hassan wearing the, the headscarf and the hijab during the, getting the, gold medal for the, for the marathon.

[00:45:42] And, yeah, I just want to get back to that point about optimism and pessimism. can't do the role that I do unless I have a degree of optimism, right? You can't. It's just impossible. You wouldn't get up in the morning unless you felt that there was something that you could build on.

[00:45:56] And so , my feeling around does sport matter? Can it matter? I kind of go back to the sort of. Italian Marxist philosopher Gramsci, which is you should be pessimistic of mind and optimistic of heart. So that pessimism of mind should be, we should have real focus on analyzing where problems are, how they occur, where are barriers, but the optimism should be, and therefore the head we overcome them.

[00:46:22] And what in the past have we overcome that can give us confidence that we can overcome this barrier that we're facing now? So again, I'll go back to football and I think, well, look at the pitch, look at that compared to when I started watching football in 1974. And it's very, very, very different, you know, 40 percent of the players are black.

[00:46:43] Now we need many more South Asian players than that. We're not getting that breakthrough when the black players are not breaking through coaching, but black players experienced in the 1970s stereotypes, and it's, it's almost comical to go back now and identify those stereotypes. So I often go back to that game in, I think it's December 1978, West Brom beat in Man United 5 3 in the snow at Old Trafford, you know.

[00:47:11] Big for a number of reasons, Cyril Regis and Laurie Cunningham were, and Brendan was obviously playing in that game as well, Brendan Batson, but Cyril Regis and Laurie Cunningham in particular, Laurie Cunningham, were absolutely incredible that day. It was snowing, there was a, it was a common thing in those days, black players can't play in the snow.

[00:47:28] And they absolutely battered United. I mean, even United fans even cheering, uh, cheering, cheering the West Brom players. Yeah, and, and there was some booing of the Black players, and Gerald Sinstad, the commentator, called it out. And you never heard anyone call out booing of Black players on television.

[00:47:43] These were really big, very small, but really big moments, because that's how you start breaking down some of those stereotypes. And now, yeah, you look at the, the, if I go to a football match, Particularly in the Premier League, it will be pretty diverse , in the stands. and increasingly so when I go around, I'm going around the 92 when I go championship league on league two, , it's more diverse than you think.

[00:48:05] It's still not quite, not quite where I do, where you might want it to be, but those are the things, the fact that we have overcome these barriers and we have overcome stereotypes, which means well actually we can do it. We can do it. So why can't we do it again? We're just doing, we're doing really the same stuff we do, but now we're pushing against a more open door because you have people inside the game who feel like they want to do more and want to create change, but maybe there's a bit of unconscious incompetence or moving to conscious incompetence.

[00:48:39] We know there's a problem. We're not quite sure how to solve it. And they can't get the attention long enough and the resources maintained long enough on to focus on something to solve it because in sports, and particularly in football, whereas an attention economy, and there's a game every three days, and the attention moves on to something else.

[00:49:00] And we learn from crisis to crisis to crisis. So those are the sort of obstacles. But we have done it in the past. So we have to have that optimism that we can change. So yeah, I am, I am optimistic, but partly because you have to be more Tiggerish than Eeyore because no one follows Eeyore into battle.

[00:49:17] So we have to be 

[00:49:19] Azeem Rafiq: optimistic about creating change.

[00:49:21] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: think that's a, we'll leave it there. I mean, we could, we could go on for days with this, but thank you so much for your time. And, and I really appreciate your candor and honesty. . Azeem, thanks a lot for your time.

[00:49:34] Really appreciate it.

[00:49:35] Azeem Rafiq: Thanks for having us. Thanks for the conversation.

[00:49:36] Richard Gillis, Unofficial Partner: And Sanjay as ever, both keep doing what you're doing.

[00:49:39] Azeem Rafiq: Thank you very much.