Professional Footballers’ Association chief executive Gordon Taylor has apologised this morning after he last night compared the plight of Ched Evans to that of the families of the Hillsborough disaster.
Speaking to Sky Sports News today, the 70-year-old claimed that his comments were not made in an attempt to offend.
He said: “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.
“That was never my intention but it was the fact that how things at one time can be perceived one way but come out very differently with the passage of time. If people feel that way about what I said, I can only apologise.
“It’s just that the inquest is on, I’m a football man, and I am very much aware of the accusations that were made about the Liverpool supporters at the time.”
Among Taylor’s comments, that he made on BBC 5Live last night included: “He [Evans] wouldn’t be the first person or persons to be found guilty and maintain their innocence and then been proven right.”
He added: “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.”
Taylor has been vocal in his backing of Ched Evans, who has served half of his five year sentence after being convicted of rape in 2012, to continue his professional career after being released last October.
