LANGUISHING at second bottom of League Two isn’t the best place to be in Scottish football; there really isn’t much lower you can go. At this level of the game you need all the support and goodwill you can get. Which makes one wonder what Clyde Football Club were thinking when they decided to offer David Goodwillie a contract.
I suppose the beleaguered club probably thought they were getting a bargain when they signed the 28-year-old striker. After all, the former Plymouth Argyle, Blackburn Rovers, Aberdeen and Scotland player is undoubtedly a far more skilled player than opponents such as Cowdenbeath and Montrose normally go up against. But here’s the rub: Goodwillie has been ruled a rapist. And that makes him fundamentally unfit to play football professionally and represent a sports club that claims to be a force for good in the community in which it exists.
Goodwillie, you will remember, was successfully sued alongside former teammate David Robertson by Denise Clair, a young woman who spent six years taking her case through the civil courts when the Crown Office ruled there was no basis for a criminal prosecution, despite what was later described by a judge as “compelling” evidence to the contrary.
Ms Clair was vindicated when a judge at the Court of Session ruled that she had indeed been raped by the footballers after they took her by taxi to a flat in West Lothian. Witnesses had spoken of the drunken and vulnerable state she’d been in when she left a pub in Bathgate. The judge ruled the pair raped her when she was in no fit state to give consent to sex, with Ms Clair telling how she woke naked, alone and terrified, locked inside the flat in Armadale. Her attackers were ordered to pay her £100,000 in compensation. Both are appealing the ruling.
Over the years Ms Clair, a young mother, was branded a slut and a gold-digger. She bravely waived her right to anonymity and spoke publicly of the terrible trauma she suffered in the aftermath of the attack, the dark suicidal thoughts as fighting for justice took its toll on her and her family.
And, after being let down by the courts, she has now been betrayed by Clyde FC, which appears hideously relaxed at having their young fans cheer on Goodwillie. Just when you start to think football is finally moving on from its sexist, racist, homophobic past, it reminds us how out of touch it remains.
Let’s be clear. Goodwillie was extraordinarily lucky to escape jail. Any half-way decent person would have hung his head in shame and accepted that his sporting career was over. Instead, arrogant Goodwillie believes football still owes him a living. Even worse than this, however, is the fact that Clyde FC is willing to support this stance.
The club claims the signing is a purely professional decision, but it cannot and should not be allowed to operate in a societal bubble. Like it or not, all professional players are role models and their behaviour off the field rightly reflects upon the clubs they play for. Sport does not and should not exist in a vacuum.
By signing Goodwillie, Clyde FC is at best glossing over, at worst glamorising, even condoning, the disgusting and misogynistic behaviour that landed Goodwillie in the Court of Session.
What should a father in the stands tell his young son or daughter who asks why the opposing fans are shouting “rapist” at one of their heroes? How can we in Scotland have the temerity to be outraged at the behaviour of Brazilian club Boa Esporte for signing goalkeeper Bruno Fernandes de Souza, a man who killed his girlfriend and fed her to his dogs, when one of our clubs has a man ruled a rapist playing for them?
I can’t help but think the club will regret the stupid, hurtful decision. I hope fans vote with their feet.
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