Richard Scudamore, the Premier League chief executive, has added to the pressure on Sheffield United over the fate of Ched Evans by saying he would not employ a convicted rapist within his organisation.
Sheffield United agreed to a request this week from the Professional Footballers’ Association to allow the striker to return to training after serving two and a half years of a five-year sentence for raping a 19-year-old woman in Rhyl.
The club has come under increasing pressure not to award Evans a new contract, with sponsors threatening to pull out if they do so and the Olympic gold medal heptathlete Jessica Ennis-Hill saying she would ask for her name to be removed from a stand at Bramall Lane.
“I am an employer. I have 100 in my organisation and I would not have someone who served time for rape. But that is easy for me to say,” Scudamore told the BBC. “On the other hand, I do believe in the rehabilitation of offenders. You might say that is hypocritical but clearly offenders do have to come back to work. But I think it would be very difficult to have that employee in our organisation.
“It is a difficult situation. He still wants to appeal. Part of rehab is remorse and contrition and that has not happened yet. It is damaging on many levels. It is damaging for Ched Evans. It is damaging for his reputation. Clearly it is an extreme case, at the very highest end of anything anyone can do.”
