Cricket
Current Cricket Scotland CEO confirmed predecessor’s position that Racism claims were unfounded
Commenting on correspondence published in the media last week, former cricket international John Blain said: “This is a craven, disingenuous and despicable attempt by Cricket Scotland to rewrite history a week after I was forced to go public to clear my name.
“Not only did Pete Fitzboydon, the CEO of Cricket Scotland, write to me in January to say that all of the claims against me were unfounded, that I had no case to answer, and my case was closed, but that position was clearly confirmed by his successor Trudy Lindblade in a phone call with me in February.
“She reiterated on the call that the claims against me were unfounded and the case against me was closed. I am sure that, if asked, she will publicly confirm that to be the case.
“This latest Cricket Scotland letter is a desperate attempt to re-invent history and to row back from an unequivocal exoneration. Unbelievably, Cricket Scotland’s preposterous position now appears to be that they in fact lied to me out of consideration for my welfare!
“That simply does not stand scrutiny when you consider that they removed me publicly from the Hall of Fame, my name was publicly dragged through the mud for years with no intervention or help from them and they prevaricated for five months after writing the letter which exonerated me.
“Their position is fatally undermined by the assurances I have received from not one but TWO chief executives.
“I will now confer with my lawyers and take all steps necessary to protect my reputation in light of this extraordinary and unsustainable about-turn.”
Commenting on Tuesday last week , Cricket Scotland’s former chair Tony Brian said:
“This Cricket Scotland letter, written, no doubt, with the close supervision of sportscotland, seeks to explain in Orwellian terms why apparently not one of the 51 cases the investigation team have looked at in detail has resulted in any further action.
“Rather than simply admit that this entire, sorry saga, which has cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to the public purse, has been irredeemably flawed and carried out to placate a small group pursuing personal and political agendas, this shameful statement tries to imply that the people who were told they have no case to answer have ‘got off’ on some kind of a ‘technicality’.
“This includes former international John Blain who was sent an unambiguous, crystal-clear letter from the Chief Executive of Cricket Scotland in January which stated: ‘As advised, these allegations have not been founded, and there is not any case to answer, and so this matter is now considered closed.’
“That is, without any scintilla of doubt, a complete exoneration. This followed absolutely compelling evidence put forward by John and his lawyers proving that the allegations against him were wholly false.
“sportscotland and the Investigation Team, in the interests of full openness and transparency, must now urgently publish the following details in respect of each of the 51 cases (anonymised of course): –
1. The date of the alleged incident
2. Its alleged nature
3. The specific reason why disciplinary action has not been recommended by the Investigation Team for that referral, if that is the case.
“They must also reveal whether the Investigation Team contacted any of the senior Cricket Scotland personnel in post at the times the Team claims no rules were in place to see if they did exist? Astonishingly, a senior employee of Cricket Scotland in the early 2000s when many of the alleged incidents are supposed to have happened has very recently told me he has never been contacted by the team.
“In addition and worryingly for sportscotland, if the investigation only looked at 51 referrals, what happened to the other 151 so-called ‘racist’ incidents and the 246 policy and procedural failings (never published) cited in the much vaunted ‘Changing the Boundaries’ report? Their existence was publicised with great fanfare but now seem to have been brushed under the carpet. I wonder why?
“It is shameful that sportscotland, Scottish sport’s taxpayer-funded national governing body, has allowed the Investigation Team to give a misleading impression to the public that John Blain has not been exonerated of the allegations made when, as sportscotland knows, and the letter of January unequivocally confirms he has been. This is presumably, to try to distract attention from the embarrassing collapse of the evidence for the report sportscotland itself commissioned.
“And, it is deeply worrying that the new Chief Executive of Cricket Scotland seems to think it is acceptable to go back on what she said only four months ago and what her predecessor put into writing only five months ago.”
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