Even though I am writing this article before the second leg at the Camp Nou on Tuesday night, I can safely say not even the result or Barcelona’s attacking prowess will raise my eyebrows more than what happened yesterday.
Ched Evans, as I am sure you have heard about by now, has been sentenced to a five year jail stretch after being found guilty of raping a 19 year old girl. Now it is not the verdict nor the heinous crime that this article focuses on – being in possession of a Law degree and indeed a certain amount of brain cells (the amount of which is at times debatable) both you and I know a court would not have found the individual guilty without sufficient evidence, and the judge’s summary during sentencing pretty much illustrates the severity of the crime not to mention how clear Evan’s part in it was.
The verdict is not up for debate. Nor is the issue of consenting to having sexual intercourse with one of the defendants and not the other. That is entirely reasonable and no matter what has gone before, no means no. What is concerning and certainly a point worth raising is that of people’s reactions. Now it may well be a minority of people, just like the minority of people who engage in racial or homophobic abuse, but none the less it is disgusting and needs to stop immediately.
There is a school of thought that the girl was ‘of a certain type’ and went out of her way to pursue a footballer just like the vast amount of girls who do just that week in week out – now before I go any further let me make it clear that such conduct in itself is something I deplore and specifically avoid certain clubs because I do not wish to see it happen – but as the judge stated, this was far from the case here and just because the defendant was a footballer, does not make him irresistible to women.
It is this point that I am struggling to understand the reactions of the public on – especially on networks such as Twitter and Facebook, which of course opens a whole separate can of worms – to say that Evans was clearly not guilty because he is a footballer is downright absurd.
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It does not make him guilty or innocent. It may make him susceptible to being approached by a woman in a club yet to use the argument the victim was looking for it therefore had no intention or right to say no- or as teammate Connor Brown wrote and subsequently deleted on twitter ‘was a money grabbing little tramp’ – because of his status is wrong on so many levels.
Another alarming issue that has come out of this sorry tale is the sheer amount of people who are still supporting Evans – yes throughout the trial I fully advocate innocent until proven guilty, but now the fact remains, the boy has been convicted of a very serious crime, and in reality if he was a stranger on the street not a footballer, would he be receiving such support?
It is arguable that such support especially from his club Sheffield United has been questionable from the very start. In any other profession, the employee would have faced a suspension pending the outcome of the case, yet Evans was allowed to continue playing like nothing had happened.
It is becoming all too familiar now that footballers feel they are invincible and able to essentially ‘get any girl they want’ and flout laws the rest of us have to follow and it is as much a flaw created by the media and public to allow footballers to attain such a status of hero dome, and it simply has to stop for the sake of the game, the players and everyone involved.
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