England v Afghanistan: Culture secretary urges caution against boycott calls
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said England’s men’s cricket team should play Afghanistan in the Champions Trophy despite calls to boycott the Taliban regime over women’s rights abuses.
Women’s participation in sports has been effectively banned since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
one cross-party letters, The document, signed by nearly 200 British politicians, has been sent to the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) calling on England to refuse to participate in the Champions Trophy match in Lahore on February 26.
However, Nandy told BBC Breakfast on Friday: “I do think it should go ahead.
“I’m instinctively wary of boycotts in sports, partly because I think they’re counterproductive.
“I think they take away an opportunity that sports fans love and they can greatly punish athletes and athletes who work very, very hard to get to the top of their game and then are deprived of the opportunity to compete.
“They are not the people we want punished for the Taliban’s appalling behavior against women and girls.”
The International Cricket Council (ICC) stipulates that a condition for full membership is the possession of a women’s cricket team and a pathway structure.
However, the Afghan men’s team was allowed to participate in the ICC tournament seemingly without any sanctions.
Sir Keir Starmer was asked directly about the matter at Prime Minister’s Questions earlier this week by Labor MP Tonia Antoniazzi, who wrote the letter to Europe Author of the central bank’s cross-party letter.
The prime minister said the “suppression of freedoms” should be “condemned in the strongest possible terms” and said the government was in dialogue with international counterparts on the issue.
