Ched Evans: apologies abound but is the mob out of control?

The day after Oldham pulled out of a deal to sign convicted rapist Ched Evans the furore has widened with Gordon Taylor, the chairman of the Professional Footballer's Association, forced to apologise to the families of the Hillsborough victims for comparing Evans's case to theirs.

He made his comments in the wake of the collapse of the Oldham deal and a statement from Evans himself on the case. Here's what's been happening:

What happened to the Oldham deal?

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The move to Oldham was abandoned on Thursday apparently after death threats were made to some staff at Boundary Park and several sponsors withdrew their support of the club.

What did Taylor say?

Speaking after the deal collapsed Taylor attempted to address one of the key issues in the case – Evans's refusal to admit his guilt.

Evans denied the rape charge but was convicted in 2011 after a trial. An appeal against the conviction was rejected by the Court of Appeal in 2012 but his case is currently being considered by the Criminal Cases Review Commission.

"He [Evans] wouldn't be the first person or persons to be found guilty and maintain their innocence and then been proven right," said Taylor. "If we're talking about things in football we know what happened, what was alleged to have happened, at Hillsborough and it’s now unravelling and we’re finding it was very different to how it was portrayed at the time, indeed by the police at the time."

What was the reaction?

Dr Phil Scraton, the primary author of the Hillsborough Independent Panel report, described Taylor's comments as "crass, insensitive and inappropriate", particularly as the Hillsborough inquests are ongoing. The comparison was "disgraceful" says Henry Winter in the Daily Telegraph, and it shows that Taylor is "hopelessly out of touch".

There have been calls for his resignation, and BBC sports editor Dan Roan told Radio 4's Today programme that the comments were "clumsy at best and, at worst, insensitive".

What has Taylor said?

He came out and apologised for his comments on Friday, and also to tried to clarify the point he was making.

"The last thing I intended to do was to upset anybody connected to the Hillsborough case," he told the BBC. "Ched Evans is a totally different case, but he has the same belief of his innocence."

In another interview he added: "The point I was making was not to embarrass or upset anybody at all among the Liverpool supporters. I'm very much an admirer of them and they know that... If people feel [offended] about what I said, I can only apologise."

What has happened to Evans?

He too has issued an apology of sorts following the collapse of the Oldham deal and attacked the "mob rule" that scuppered his hopes of a return to football. He said he had been advised by lawyers not to comment on the case but was concerned that "this silence has been misinterpreted as arrogance".

He added: "Whilst I continue to maintain my innocence, I wish to make it clear that I wholeheartedly apologise for the effects that night in Rhyl has had on many people, not least the woman concerned."

He also condemned the actions of those people, regarded as his supporters, who have hounded the victim in the case on social media. She has had to change her identity several times since the attack in 2011.

What was the reaction to that?

Earlier in the week, Daily Mail columnist warned that a "tipping point" in the Evans case was looming. The "mob" surrounding Evans was becoming "so intense, so unbounded, so utterly uncivilised and lacking in that most basic human capacity for forgiveness that the impossible will be achieved. He will become a sympathetic character."

And he appears to have been right. Writing in The Times, Matthew Syed says Evans's future must not "be determined through the arbitrary mechanisms of Twitter, online petitions and celebrity whim".

A leader in the same paper describes Oldham's efforts to sign the player as "baffling" and describes Evans's apology as "too evasive and too late". But it insists that the "crude opprobrium that has cowed the club into backing down is deplorable... Reckless intimidation must not prevail over folly".