Oldham and threats to staff?

[DoraGora]

Oldham were totally mad (and a bit arrogant) to consider Evans in the first place. But, they've succeeded in making a heartbreakingly nasty and disgusting situation ten times worse with their staff now being threatened.

What the hell is wrong with football clubs? If Dr Mengele was a mean goalie would somebody try to sign him? (Don't answer that one. I think I already know!)

I think most of the discussion on this is in the various AIBU threads.

I hope all threats are thoroughly investigated.

I saw somewhere (Guardian?) that a bigwig in Greater Manchester Police has instructed his officers to be proactive and to contact the club to ascertain the nature of these threats and to launch an investigation.

I've yet to hear that one has begun.

I disagree. The man is a footballer by profession and if he wants to get back into useful employment he is going to approach football clubs. It happens to pay a lot of money and that's what gets people's goat. If he was trying to get work as a window cleaner or a street sweeper, there wouldn't be a problem. If sponsors objected, I'd accept that. If fans stopped buying tickets, I'd accept that. But death threats are wholly unacceptable in a civilised society and Oldham did not make the situation worse. That's victim-blaming.

In a week when people around the world are lighting candles and posting FB messages in memory of those who paid the ultimate price for standing up to intimidation, I think it is hypocritical of us to applaud those who would try to intimidate a football club away from a particular course of action using threats.

There are democratic ways to express disgust at football management and threatening to commit crimes against their staff isn't one. I hope these fools are caught and severely punished. Am I right in thinking that a twitter troll went to prison? Something similar here, I think/hope.

Some people need to be shown.

I do not condone threats being made against people, but I don't consider it intimidation for sponsors to say that they won't continue their sponsorship if the organisation the sponsor does something they fundamentally disagree with.

And I do think there is a big difference between a street sweeper who's served his sentence for rape getting another job sweeping streets, and a footballer who hasn't served all of his sentence returning to a high-profile job where he will get adulation from (some) fans.

Football managers one after another are queuing up to make the situation worse. Another one, Hull City, I think, has just weighed in. Clubs meddling when they should leave well alone is one problem. People threatening to commit crimes is obviously illegal and something else altogether.

There's no difference in principle between a street sweeper and a footballer. The pay is vastly different but a job's a job. One is not superior to the other and everyone is entitled to earn a living. Footballers do not routinely attract adulation... he will forever be known as 'convicted rapist Ched Evans'.

It is not intimidation for sponsors to say they think a new signing is a PR disaster and withdraw their investment. It's the same kind of commercial decision that sees cosmetics companies dropping coke-snorting models from their advertising.

Evans will probably end up signing for an overseas club.

Apparently when Oldham said no to him, he just assumed they meant yes and turned up for training anyway.

Barry Owen has resigned

He seems to have told the BBC about the threats that a staff member was informed a named relative would be raped if the Evans deal went ahead.

Does anyone know if a threat serious enough to be mentioned in his resignation statement has yet to be referred to the police. GMP have said they are standing ready to investigate, and it needs to be launched asap.

BBC Sport has a good article by Phil McNulty, today. It discusses many of the football directors' errors at Sheffield, Hartlepool and Oldham. It says that some of the errors were naive but well intentioned and others were none of those things.

I still think there's something very wrong with a board of directors (any board) which knows damn well that something is wrong and forges ahead with it anyway.

The chairman of the trust isn't the same thing as the chairman of the club. It should be Simon Corney in the frame for monumental mismanagement, not Barry Owen. Where's his resignation?

"I think it is hypocritical of us to applaud those who would try to intimidate a football club away from a particular course of action using threats."

All the police have seen so far is "low level tweets"

I think it is very important that actual threats are reported to the police asap (especially as the police have been proactive about saying they stand ready to investigate).

So far 9 people have been prosecuted for their tweets, and there are also investigations underway into those sent to Jessica Ennis.

Those who try to intimidate in this way are not being applauded.

I'd be interested in who tweeted what to whom (in an academic sense.) I don't have an account. There may be a problem that some people are not very articulate and suppose that Oi, I'm going to smack you one, or rape your donkey

counts as a valid argument. Supposing that such people are above school leaving age, maybe it's a bit late to do anything about the lack of rhetorical ability in those people. But, maybe today's pupils can be helped.

I thin the applause is bound up in the mass moralising that is going on around the story. History is littered with examples where a genuine grievance coopted by an angry mob attracts extremists and results in anarchy, bullying, witch-hunts and persecution.

I'm a little bit sceptical about the existence of any threats. If there were any threats then whoever made them has a very warped understanding of why so many of us find the idea of CE returning to football so objectionable.

He has spectacularly cocked this up. I completely understand that there are legal reasons which would serve to restrict any statement he could make right now. He should have waited the outcome of the CCRC review of his conviction before attempting to return to football and then he would either have been vindicated or could apologise properly.

He should also have spoken out against his supporters harassment of his victim long before now.

I'm also quite sickened at the attempted use of his wannabe wag girlfriends family money to buy his way back into football. Your average window cleaner could not do that.

I'm an accountant. No way would my firm employ a convicted rapist. I don't see that he is being treated any more harshly than he would in many or indeed most professions.

I think somebody needs to point some of these threats out. It's not inconceivable that there are some. The Internet is a rough old place. But, it would be spectacularly easy to pretend that there had been some as a cover in order to back out of this self inflicted pile of doggy whoops.

If there aren't any threats, then the club has inflicted even more harm by smearing legitimate public concern. It would be nice to know what the hell is going on, really.