Getting a little tired of hearing about Ched Evan's legal right to be employed by a football club. There's no such right. He doesn't have any legal right to a specific job and he doesn't get to claim any moral right to any employment - none of us have that legal right but I suspect most of us would assert a moral right.
He simply has a window of opportunity to reintegrate himself into society but unfortunately his attitude and behaviour continues to demonstrate that he remains a danger to society. I won't apologise for believing that a man arrogant enough to believe he is entitled to violate a woman's body and thick enough to not understand the violation is not yet ready to be reintegrated into society.
He himself has admitted that as a professional footballer he believed he could get any woman he wanted in a nightclub which is why football is exactly the wrong profession for him to return to.
The culture of football in this country and others remains problematic and we're expected to endorse or turn a blind eye to a young man, already on the Sex Offenders' Register, being encompassed once again by a culture that has done little to condemn sexism, racism, or homophobia. A culture that will idolise him simply for putting a ball into the back of a net. That's all that people are asking him to forgo - the opportunity to put a ball in the back of a net. Why does that matter so much to him ? Or is it that he genuinely believes or needs the adulation that comes with being a moderately skilled footballer player ?
It's not mob mentality for people to say that enough is enough - most of us can see that the legal system in this country has not yet gone far enough to support women, that we do not recognise or punish sufficiently the perpetrators of sexual crimes. There have always been activists who have campaigned for change and all social media does is allow those less active but equally horrified to have a voice. That doesn't constitute a mob but democracy. It's our society, we are allowed a voice in the moral conduct of society - the law serves to uphold that conduct - it is not the other way round.
It's alright to tell a young woman whose life fell apart when she was 19 that she matters. It is not alright, nor is it fair to Ched Evans, to send him the message that reintegration will happen without any remorse or awareness by him of his crime. His right to kick a ball does not supercede the right of women to be safe in his company. Once he demonstrates that to society, he can kick as many balls as he wants.
Is it a moral issue for Oldham ? IMO yes and one that finds them sadly lacking and that causes harm.