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Let's imagine that Ched Evans had made the extremely belated apology that he made today much earlier and that for whatever reason, there was no subsequent coverage of this issue in the media at all. It dropped out of sight as the media covered other issues.

Do you think that Oldham sponsors would still be threatening to pull the plug if he was going to be given a contract?

I don't know the answer to that question and I suspect you do not either. What I think we both agree on is that there are both moral issues and publicity issues here in the decisions made by sponsors and football clubs.

I repeat...

Yesterday Mr Corney was saying, "there are still legal issues to overcome which could cause a delay to signing the deal".

Wonder what these "legal issues" were and what the outcome of the lawyer?s deliberations was?

Let's imagine that Ched Evans had made the extremely belated apology that he made today much earlier and that for whatever reason, there was no subsequent coverage of this issue in the media at all. It dropped out of sight as the media covered other issues.

Do you think that Oldham sponsors would still be threatening to pull the plug if he was going to be given a contract?

If, if, if. As the saying goes "If dog shit was made of gold I would be a multi millionaire."

If. Well most of your suppositions are based on complete guesswork e.g. the motives of the sponsors, the motive of the owners etc etc.

He's not going to play for them though is he?

I repeat.

There is no legal reason why a footballer convicted of a sexual offence and on the Sex Offenders Register should not play for a football team unless the licence conditions prevent it happening and I find it difficult to believe that this could be the case given that Sheffield United did not give that as a reason as far as I am aware for not contracting Evans.

Secondly you have not given me any reason why I am wrong in that assertion.

Thirdly, I have no idea what the "legal issues" are which Corney refers to. They could possibly be to do with whether sponsors could actually pull out of sponsorship contracts which are presumably legally binding. I have no idea nor have you!

Or for all we know, they may be a lie he was using as an excuse for what he could see coming. I do not know. Neither do you.

I note that Corney gave as one reason a whole host of violent threats, rape threats, death threats made to club staff if Evans was employed. According to the media, Greater Manchester Police had not received any complaints from Oldham about these threats.

I know that.

?There is no legal reason why a footballer convicted of a sexual offence and on the Sex Offenders Register should not play for a football team unless the licence conditions prevent it happening and I find it difficult to believe that this could be the case given that Sheffield United did not give that as a reason as far as I am aware for not contracting Evans.?

We'll never know how Sheffield managed the whole pantomime. Perhaps they are as equally incompetent in Sheffield as they are in Oldham.

?Thirdly, I have no idea what the "legal issues" are which Corney refers to. They could possibly be to do with whether sponsors could actually pull out of sponsorship contracts which are presumably legally binding. I have no idea nor have you!?

No but I have my suspicions and I'm sure there are lots of people in Oldham now saying "let's move on" or some such platitude, so I'll guess we'll never know.

?I note that Corney gave as one reason a whole host of violent threats, rape threats and death threats made to club staff if Evans was employed. According to the media, Greater Manchester Police had not received any complaints from Oldham about these threats.?

Well that's a surprise. What an easy way to get themselves out of a hole whilst still taking the moral high-ground.

?Thirdly, I have no idea what the "legal issues" are which Corney refers to. They could possibly be to do with whether sponsors could actually pull out of sponsorship contracts which are presumably legally binding. I have no idea nor have you!?

That would be an interesting conversation.

Oldham "you cannot pull out of your sponsorship deal".

Sponsor "OK, here keep your sponsorship money, but because association with your club is now so toxic, we do NOT want our logo appearing anywhere in your ground. It must be painted-out and a blank space appearing wherever we have paid for our logo to appear. You can then explain why your ground has so many blank spaces where there should be sponsor names and we will back that up with a news release. And by the way you cannot look to fill those spaces with new sponsor logo until our contract is finished because we have paid for those spaces."

I'm sure the sponsor will have legal protections with regard to unauthorised use of their logos which would require Oldham to remove the logos if the sponsor required it and the club were not financial disadvantaged by that requirement. Business is very protective of their brands.

I'd like to be a fly on the wall when that conversation is had.

David Johnson wrote:

> So, a difficult one, but on balance I think he should be
> allowed to return to professional football.
>
> What do the esteemed members of this forum think?

I fully agree with that.
He'll struggle to find a club prepared to take him on though, for fear of bad publicity, and that's an integral part of professional football these days - perhaps less so as you go done the league hierarchy.

His best chance might be to find a club abroad, but there could be problems with his license.

More generally, as an expat living in the UK, I find this country's attitude towards sexual offences somewhat mystifying. There was a looong tradition of entirely ignoring sexual offences of anyone part of the establishment (in any shape or form), and now this has swung completely the opposite way, possibly in the wake of the Jimmy Saville scandal, from ignorance to witch-hunt.

Another thing I find peculiar is that nobody seems to be prepared to acknowledge that in the world of sexual relations there is (in the real world) a big grey area inhabiting the space between normal sexual relations and sexual abuse. Of course, legally a grey area is no good, you have to commit to allowed/forbidden, so a line is drawn right through the grey area, where some people are a bit lucky to get away with dodgy behaviour and others unlucky to be thrown into the same pot as more clear-cut offenders. But in the media, including forums such as this, people seem to refute the existence of any grey area in their judgement of people, deferring their own judgement to that of the courts, keeping a nice clear-cut distinction between white-hats and black-hats.