Professional football is totally dependent on sponsors. It should be evident that no sponsor is going to allow its brand to effectively be damaged by condoning a convicted rapist. Wayne Rooney and Tiger Woods lost sponsors on the back of their behaviour which wasn't even criminal.
Even if the sex was consensual, as CE claims, surely the fact that he turned up the hotel to watch his mate have sex with the victim then ended up having sex with her himself while being watched from a window by his brother and mates says it all!
Perhaps professional football clubs could consider chaperones when players have a night on the town. Its surely a recipe for disaster: young fit looking guys, young attractive females, celeb culture, money, booze and recreational drugs being freely available.
The circumstances of this case are rather reminiscent of the film The Accused, in which Jodie Foster's character was the victim of incited rape. Perhaps if the police had pursued prosecutions against all the men involved that night, justice would have been better served & CE's right to return to football would have been substantially weakened.
