Would you stop going, if this happened

Anyone who wishes to can look up the opinion I expressed earlier on page 2 of the thread by nigelsboy dated to October 19 currently on pgs 2 of the threads.

Here I entirely agree with Joanna in deferring to the jury and the ongoing legal processes re arriving at any personal view of the rights and wrongs of the case and anyway it's irrelevant to a football thread per se.

In terms of the rehabilitation of offenders whatever their crimes I would like to think that I am in favour of forgiveness and their managed rehabilitation into society- whether I would be were I the victim of their offences or even the victim of the same offence by another party I just don't know. As ever rationality and logic could be trumped by emotion.

A significant footballing issue remains for me here and it's much as I articulated in October. Football is governed internationally by FIFA and nationally by the FA . That this is so allows national and European elected representatives and governing institutions to abdicate from responsibility- sometimes rightly in my view but at other times reprehensibly, e.g through the 70s and 80s and part of the 90s in matters of hooliganism in and around stadia.

But here I cannot understand the silence of FIFA and the FA. There have been a number of matters over the years, for example betting, corruption, drug abuse or even missed drug tests, violence committed by players on or around the field of play eg Cantona, more recently in the context of onfield racism, more recently still when social media have been perceived to be used offensively and quite regularly when managers or club officials or owners make slanderous pronouncements to the media.

In these circumstances sometimes tthe FA leap in and charge the offenders and ever more swiftly mete our punishments or they allow any legal processes to run their course and then have separate hearings which not uncommonly lead to harsher fines or suspensions than delivered by the courts

I just think that leaving individual clubs to sort all this out subject to employment law and media sensitivity is quite wrong.

Murder,  Fraud, Armed Robbery, Drug Peddling  and Sex Offending would probably feature prominently in lists of offences which if proven to the satisfaction of a jury could lead to first time penal sentences. In any such circumstance I cannot see why the FA and indeed FIFA would not ban the offender either sine die or for the full length of the legal sentence or some other prohibitive period. There is perhaps some complexity in terms of organised prison football and the FA could perhaps build in some reintegration towards the end of sentences and of course there are lots of ramifications in respect of amateur footballers at all levels. But the FA unlike the UK courts do not have to operate within a precedent based system they can respond on a case by case basis and a judgement in one case does not have to apply to another although some fairness would be desirable. As minima I would suggest that all clubs with professional footballers on the books or charging to admit fans could fall within the FA's remit.

Here if Evans had been subject to say an eight year ban by the FA  from all forms of football I suspect the outcry in year 9 would be far less

For these reasons I have a degree of sympathy with Oldham Athletic and even Evans himself purely in the matter of footballing employment. The debate is being held in an unsatisfactory vacuum in my opinion  .


All of this said in response to the thread's question ' No-  nothing would make me withdraw my support from BWFC