Chamber and committees

Racism in Sport

Background

Following allegations of racism at Yorkshire County Cricket Club, and subsequent stories emerging from others who had experienced racism in cricket, an independent review into racism in Scottish cricket was commissioned.

Changing The Boundaries: The Plan4Sport Independent Review into Racism in Scottish Cricket was published in July 2022.

The independent review was commissioned by sportscotland, the national agency for sport in Scotland. It focused on Cricket Scotland, the governing body for cricket in Scotland and was conducted by Plan4Sport with support from Running Out Racism. The Plan4Sport independent review made the following recommendations, to be addressed by Cricket Scotland and implemented by sportscotland:

• Cricket Scotland to commence an immediate recruitment process for new Board members, with appointments made no later than 30 September 2022Given the resignation of the existing Board on 24 July 2022. It is recommended that new Board members must not have a relationship with Cricket Scotland, organisations, or individuals that could cause a conflict of interest
• The diversity of the Board members should be a minimum of 40% men and 40% women, and ensuring that a minimum of 25% of the total Board makeup come from of Black, South-East Asian, or other mixed or multiple ethnic groups. Getting to Know You survey – club player diversity is 25% from those communities and this should be reflected in the membership of the new Board
• Action Plan to be developed by Cricket Scotland which addresses the immediate actions and short-term KPI’s set out below. The Action Plan should be approved by sportscotland no later than 30 September 2022
• Appoint four new key roles to Cricket Scotland; Anti-racism and EDI Manager, Discipline Manager, HR Manager and Communications Manager
• Undertake a governance review
• sportscotland to have oversight of progress against the agreed Action Plan. Cricket Scotland to provide weekly update reports to sportscotland on this.

On 7 September 2022, the Committee wrote to Cricket Scotland and sportscotland, highlighting significant concerns about the key findings of the Review. In particular that the governance and leadership practices of Cricket Scotland were found to be institutionally racist and that Cricket Scotland has been placed in special measures until at least October 2023 as a consequence.

On 13 September 2022, Cricket Scotland released an update on their plan to investigate 68 complaints and experiences of racism in Scottish cricket which were brought to Plan4Sport’s attention during the independent review process. Although the details of the individual complaints are confidential, the Plan4Sport review shared that the allegations included:

• racial abuse,
• inappropriate language,
• favouritism towards young white children from public schools, and
• a lack of transparency in the selection process for non-white players.