How Do You Solve A Problem Like Ched Evans?

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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