The furious and often dispiriting debate around Sheffield
United’s is set to come to a head today, with the former Man City and Sheffield
United striker set to resume his career upon his release from prison after
serving a sentence for rape.
Whether or not Evans should be allowed to continue his
career has become an ugly debate. On one side is the insistence that certain
crimes are beyond the pale, with usually liberal individuals insisting Evans
not be allowed to play due to both his lack of repentance and the facts of his
crime. On the other are both those with a strict adherence to the idea of
rehabilitation and the altogether uglier spectacle of those offering up an
apologia for a rapist – or worse, not seeming to care.
Firstly there’s the idiocy from all those without direct
knowledge who proclaim either that Evans is innocent or that it is somehow a
lesser offence than if he fitted the alleyway pervert stereotype. It shouldn’t
need stating but rape is rape. While Evans is entitled to appeal, and it’s
understandable that those close to him continue to support him (that’s what being family,
or in love obliges you to do ), as long as his conviction is upheld in a court of law, he is a
convicted rapist. A jury saw the evidence and concluded that the victim couldn’t
consent due to inebriation – that makes it rape.
Ched Evans - Guilty of rape
Given the idea that a football club, its traditions and
reputation should always come ahead of one man, it’s also quite saddening that
he should be so readily employable. The argument that footballers are role
models may be a spurious one (delegating your child’s moral education on the
basis of an ability to beat an offside trap is clearly daft), but nor can a
game which relies on fans having loyalty to something more important than its
mere mechanics state that Evans is doing a job like any other.
Yet there is one point it is possible to have a degree of
sympathy with Evans on. If Sheffield United (or anyone else) are prepared to
employ him, then all the moral outrage in the world can’t stop them. It may
sicken many of us that an unrepentant rapist can walk back into a high profile
and well paid job, but others evidently don’t feel that way – with even some
women (Ok, Judy Finnegan) making excuses for him. Trying to enforce our own
moral misgivings on others may feel right – but it’s difficult to justify
legally or as a principle. The fact that the nature of Evans’ crime and his
lack of repentance are morally abhorrent and his return to prominence may be
detrimental to both the victim and others may make us wish to act – but making
an exception to normal practice based on our particular revulsion is a
dangerous game.
However the notion of just allowing him to return to the
game is also problematic. Professional football offers its players far more
than just a means to earn a living – it offers public prominence, validation and
yes, adulation. It’s easy to state that we should separate his work from his
previous actions – but if Evans returns to his previous League One form
Sheffield’s airwaves will quickly be filling up with praise for a man who not
only is a rapist but an unrepentant one. It’s one thing suggesting a man should
be able to earn a living, entirely another that he has the right to be in a
place where victims and their families have to listen to him being feted every
week, with seemingly no one in the sport particularly caring about the pain he’d
inflicted on his victim.
The problem all sports have is the discrepancy between the
punishment of acts that are deemed ‘outside’ the sport and those deemed within
its jurisdiction. A recent example was the
Ray Rice furore in American football
– after video footage emerged of Rice dragging his unconscious fiancee (now wife)
through a hotel lobby (later a video of how she was rendered unconscious would
also appear) the running back was banned for two games. The American public
contrasted that with a yearlong ban handed to fellow player Josh Gordon for
smoking marijuana and saw a moral universe turned on its head. In their cack
handed attempts at drawing up a moral code the NFL created one which seemed to
place horrific domestic violence alongside swearing on TV and below smoking a
tiny amount of weed in the list of sins. After the full details of the incident
emerged Rice was banned indefinitely and sacked yet the damage was already done.
UEFA an FIFA have also had their own problems in finding the
‘right’ punishment for fan racism. Throughout the last decade it’s been pointed
out countless times that clubs whose fans have been guilty of the most
egregious racist behaviour have faced lesser or similar sanctions to those
guilty of offences that we deem far less damaging and offensive.
What the two situations share is that if you accept the
premise that if certain actions off the field of play are morally wrong, damage
the game and therefore deserve a sanction, then you’re open to questions about
those cases where you fail to act at all or impose an insignificant punishment.
It seems perverse that footballers and clubs can receive
hefty sanctions for behaviour that is deemed to be ‘bringing the game into
disrepute’ and yet one who refuses to accept his responsibility for a heinous
crime, despite being convicted in a court of law is welcomed back with open
arms. By enforcing a standard of behaviour that’s expected of players beyond the
simple rules of the game football has given itself a moral dimension.
The fact that Rio Ferdinand can be hauled before the FA over the use of a sexist term in
a tweet, shows that at least when there are few consequences, the FA takes behaviour
that could be construed as offensive very seriously.
Which brings us back to the Evans conundrum. Currently his
crime is deemed as outside football’s disciplinary structure and so those
uncomfortable with seeing 18,000 people cheer on a man who is guilty of rape
are reliant on clubs taking individual moral stands. It gets worse; the FA are
now in the farcical position that employing Evans on a hefty contract and
giving him prominence is entirely legitimate, yet fans who cheer his name may
face sanction. A spokesman said: “If a club’s supporters chant songs that
‘praise’ the offender (Evans) or ridicule and possibly identify the victim, The
FA will make swift, and possibly even pre-emptive contact with the club, to
discuss in collaboration what measures they can take to prevent this.”
Such inconsistent application of outrage against moral turpitude is understandably
offensive to some –why, if Evans is so morally repugnant that praising him is offensive, is he allowed on the pitch in the first place? Surely his presence is
more disturbing in itself than the odd imbecile taking it as a cue to drag
their knuckles, or fans chanting for a man they’ve been told is perfectly okay
to represent their club? If he were a 33-year-old clogger or untested prospect he
almost certainly would be deemed to be not worth the bother. This inconsistency
is all rather unsettling – as it implies that Evans’ talents make him immune to
moral judgements that would be applied to others. It leaves us with the same
inconsistency of individually punishing Evans in reverse – that clubs are
making an exception for him because of his ability to score goals.
As a solution to these two competing arguments, of our moral
instincts and the desire for fairness, would it be so difficult for the FA, or
Football League to add a disciplinary procedure that introduces bans for
individuals guilty of serious criminal offences?
Other professional bodies act in this way. A doctor or
lawyer convicted of a criminal offence can be struck off even if their offence has
little to do with his or her ability to treat illness or argue in court. In
order to preserve the reputation of the profession those who bring it into
disrepute are not allowed back. Other sports even act in this way over comparatively
minor infractions– the greatest Olympian of all time, Michael Phelps, is currently
serving a six month ban from swimming for being drunk at the wheel.
The FA, PFA or Football League could introduce a sliding
scale depending on the seriousness of the offence and the sentence – anyone who
receives a sentence of six months to three years could receive a year’s ban
upon release, with those over that getting a longer time in clink receiving
indefinite bans to be reviewed every two years (these tariffs are merely an example).
Such a system could even help with rehabilitation – footballers
who received a ban could as part of the conditions of being allowed back be
forced to attend courses, counselling or undertake charity work to ensure being
readmitted to the game, either in a playing capacity or otherwise. As possibly
the best funded trade union in the world, the PFA isn’t exactly without the ability
to help its incarcerated members retrain and get back on their feet.
The case for such a system is not that footballers are role
models (they really aren’t), but that being a professional footballer is a privilege.
It’s a privilege because it is a profession that pays astonishingly well
because of the game’s popularity and reputation, something that is damaged by
its practitioners committing serious criminal offences.
To invoke Kant’s categorical imperative – Evans’ behaviour
on its own won’t empty the stands and see TV companies scrambling for the
rights to badminton, but if all or even a significant minority of players acted
like him then men’s football would have a serious problem. The reputational
damage to the game would be immense – sponsors would dry-up, the families and
casual fans who’ve helped football’s post-1990s boom would drift away and the
money which has made even lower league players like Evans rich would disappear,
as a lot of fans feel understandably uncomfortable with the idea of watching a rapist take the
field.
Football seems to accept as much when it comes to minor
infractions, like a wayward tweet or a piece of drunken idiocy, but not for
major offences. It’s an inconsistency that leaves the game’s professional
bodies looking like their moral crusades, respect agendas and attempts to make
football more inclusive are more about PR than any particular sense of right
and wrong. If football believes it has moral obligations, then it has one to
ensure that it doesn’t bestow privileged status on those who hopelessly fail to
live up to them.
Such a system would not arbitrarily punish players because
of public revulsion, but would accept that as prominent public figures who are
well rewarded due to the popularity of their sport they have a duty to uphold
certain standards of behaviour. If the football authorities accept that the
game is about more than just blokes kicking a ball, if it wants to present us
with heroes whose remuneration is dependent not just on their actions on the
pitch – then perhaps it is time that they considered ensuring that committing a
serious crime deprived you of the privilege of being one of those heroes.
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