Don’t Sully Football With Ched Evans’ Depravity
IS a convition for rape enough for the right-minded to dislike former Sheffield United and Wales footballer Ched Evans? Or do we need more? Do we need to know what kind of a life he is now living to really despise him?
The Mail:
Earlier in the day, under the cover of darkness, at 4.58am, a silver Mercedes ML 4×4 was seen pulling up outside Wymott Prison near Leyland, Lancashire.
Is the make and model of his getaway car relevant? Plenty of people with riches and desirable goods at their disposal have been in prison for sickening crimes. Is his money relevant?
The Sun notes:
The unrepentant striker appeared to slip seamlessly back into the high life yesterday — as he was pictured in public for the first time since leaving jail on Friday, travelling in an £85,000 car. He spent the night with girlfriend Natasha Massey, also 25, at the couple’s luxury £4,000 a month rented townhouse.
Anorak could not care what car he drives. But what about his clothes? Apparently, many readers are keen to look like Ched Evans and his lover Natasha Massey because we’re then told:
Natasha clutched a grey handbag resembling £885 ones by designer Chloé. And she wore a tan coat like the £250 Trench by Michael Kors. Evans was in a £400 tweed jacket.
Ched Evans is a low-life. He was convicted in a fair trail and found guilty by a jury. And as a result he was removed from decent society. The law worked.
His lover has committed no crime. Talk of Massey’s clothing and possessions is pathetic. It seeks to implicate her in something indecent. It’s inviting us to judge her. But she’s broken no law. She was not in the dock. She is free to make her own decisions. What would we have her wear? What would be acceptable?
The law dictates Eveans be free to live his life anew. Good. Free speech says he can protest his innocence. How he spends his cash is up to him. Who hires him is up to them.
Talking of his wealth hints at a need for revenge, not justice.
The focus on his money is weak.
The petition calling for him to be banned from professional football opines that a “lucrative contract” will be seen as a “reward” for rape. It won’t be. It’s a reward for being lucky enough to play the best-paid sport out there.
And that’s the problem with this whole story.
Karen Ingala Smith of East London Rape Crisis said “with Ched Evans, we’re not talking about someone simply returning to work, we’re talking about someone who is lauded as a role model and hero”.
The arugment is that being a footballer makes Ched Evans a unique case. That football fans are so stupid and slack-jawed they will to a man see Ched Evans in a pricey car and think him a “role model”. They will think rape is fine.
This insult that football fans are a rape and race riot waiting to happen buys into the elite view of them as being in need of a moral education. The elite can try all manner of crowd control and thought policing on these fools. Don’t sing that. Don’t say this. Show your ID card. Don’t cheer when Ched scores.
This monstering of football fans, and by inference the mainly white working class, led to Hillsborough – as the “slum people” lay dying the police sent not for ambulances but for attack dogs.
People will think for themselves. People will act as they see fit. Ched Evans represents no-one but himself. He alone is accountable for his criminality.
Don’t sully football with his depravity…
Posted: 19th, October 2014 | In: Sports Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
