Footballers have neither qualification nor need to be 'role models'. I agree with the baseball player quoted in the morning's Times, to effect that he just gets on with a job he happens to be good at, & it is no part of his function to bring people's children up for them; that is the parents' responsibility.

With that in mind, and bearing in mind the principle that a released criminal who has served his time has, as the saying is, 'paid his debt to society', and should be helped to be reintegrated as a respectable member of that society, I think Mr Evans should be allowed to resume his former job. Knowing football crowds and their ways, mind, he will need to be aware that he will be likely to get some hostile reactions every time he gets anywhere near the ball.

≈M≈