If we were in a position where signing Ched Evans would improve the team, would you sign him?
All getting pretty heavy now. Sponsors threatening to pull out of Sheff Utd and Jess Ennis wants her name taking off the stand if they re-sign him.
I find his complete lack of remorse (even allowing for his proclaimed innocence) seriously distasteful, I wouldn't want characters like that here (but then I said that about Pennant and Marlon King and others were happy enough for us to be after players like that, so maybe it's just me). But can you stop a man from working in his chosen field? If Sheff Utd don't sign him then surely someone else will?
It's not a wise move on his part to be releasing videos showing him with no contrition at all, given that he is going to be asking what are, after all, community representatives to be employing him. I think that Marlon King is an unequivocally worse human being than Ched Evans and there was nowhere near as much fuss made about him and his return to football - and he was a repeat scumbag, the list of his offences is horrific. A lot of this is media led and there's a definite snowball effect, once one patron/sponsor/whatever pulls out then the rest fall over themselves to do the same so they're not the ones left "condoning rape" or some bullshit.
On Evans himself, I don't know how I'd deal with it personally as I seriously doubt I would ever get myself in that position - I'm not sure what footballers' obsession is with shagging girls together and getting their mates to film it. Obviously he feels he is innocent - but he could and should be handling it a bit more sensitively than he is, and that's definitely contributing to the reaction I think. You could argue that he has no need to apologise if indeed he has been wrongly convicted but there are ways and means of going about it. Painting yourself as the wronged victim when the most charitable version of events is that his mate was banging some random girl who was out of her mind on drink, told Evans, he went to the hotel, had his turn while others watched on and filmed it, and then sneaked out of the fire escape - and you want people to believe this version so that you can resume your very highly paid career - well, it leaves a pretty sour taste, doesn't it.
As I say I'm sure someone will sign him well before the start of next season, does it make any difference whether he's playing for Sheffield United or say, Wycombe? Surely it doesn't make any difference. But the PFA aren't going to stop him playing, there is nothing to stop a club signing him...so while I get why (some) Sheffield United fans, public faces of the club and investors don't want any association with him, eventually someone will. It's inevitable.
