Former Yorkshire coach Andrew Gale has refused to attend his own disciplinary hearing after he was one of seven individuals charged by the ECB following an investigation into Azeem Rafiq's allegations of racism.
Gale was sacked by Yorkshire in December, along with director of cricket Martyn Moxon and the rest of the coaching team, having previously been suspended by the club over a historic tweet containing an anti-Semitic slur. The 38-year-old was one of six members of staff who filed a claim against Yorkshire for wrongful dismissal, with an employment tribunal finding their claim to be 'well founded '.
However, Gale has since been charged by the ECB for bringing the game into disrepute, with the Cricket Discipline Commission (CDC) set to handle the hearings. Rafiq has alleged that Gale would call him a "p***" and "Raffa the Kaffir".
He also told the DCMS Select Committee that "there were numerous incidents where I felt that Andrew was aggressive and rude towards me in ways he wasn't with white players" during Gale's tenure as captain and then coach.
Gale has now broken his silence on Rafiq's allegations, issuing a 3,500-word statement on Instagram where he claimed the ECB process was "tainted" and that they were looking for "scapegoats".
The former opening batter categorically denies Rafiq's claims and called him "a complex character" and "an embittered former colleague". In his statement, Gale said: "I am today informing the ECB that I will not be attending the disciplinary hearing as I have no faith in that process.
"It would appear that the ECB needs to find somebody guilty of something in order to substantiate Yorkshire's undoubted 'guilty' plea. Lord Patel has embraced the entirely false allegation that YCCC was an institutionally racist organisation.
"Even if that were true, which is denied, his 'clear out' of staff was only limited to the coaching and medical staff, and utterly ignored the players and the other departments within YCCC. Indeed, the latest ECB investigation has only resulted in a small number of people being charged. I believe that we are being put forward as scapegoats and I simply will not cooperate in that process."
He continued: "I will always be unhappy with how my career ended but I refuse to have my life defined by unsubstantiated allegations by an embittered former colleague and by a YCCC/ECB witch hunt."
