“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 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

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

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

We go deep in to the North American market today with Daniel Kaplan, one of the very best reporters covering the US sports business beat. I’ve known Daniel for over twenty years, first when he covered tennis and the NFL for SportsBusiness Journal, and then more latterly at The Athletic, Front Office Sports and Awful Announcing, the sports media news site.

We dissect three recent stories involving some of the biggest names in the US market: NFL, UFC, NBC and the Olympic Games.

This week’s Unofficial Partner Podcast is sponsored by Loughborough University London and the Institute of Sports Humanities

Leadership in Sport MA 2024 Applications Open

Applications for the next intake on the 2024 Leadership in Sport Masters are open.

The Leadership in Sport Masters is designed for sports industry executives to study part-time alongside their careers.

The programme is co-delivered by Loughborough University London and the Institute of Sports Humanities (ISH), experts in leadership education.

Loughborough University is ranked best university in the world for sports-related subjects (QS World University Rankings by Subject 2017-2023).

Find out more https://www.sportshumanities.org/masters-uk

or contact tom.rann@sportshumanities.org

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 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

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

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

We’re in the middle of the Olympic Games in Paris so it’s a good time to ask some bigger questions as to the future of the Olympics and mega sports events more generally, with regular contributor Ed Smith, founder of the Institute of Sports Humanities and fellow guest Dr Simon Rofe, a world leading expert in the field of sports diplomacy, and himself a visiting lecturer at ISH, which helps its students decode the signals derived from history and interrogate the impact of globalisation on sport.

Simon has an international research profile addressing sports diplomacy, with a particular focus upon the relationship of the sporting ecosystem with diplomatic practice, having been instrumental in establishing the field of study since 2010.

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 400 sports business conversations are available free of charge here.

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

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