The Sunday Post View: Unrepentant rapist footballer David Goodwillie is a moral bankrupt. So are his clubs

Val McDermid did not shoot and hit the bar when she started the week by revealing her stone-cold rage at Raith Rovers signing a rapist.

The best-selling novelist very publicly pointed out the decision to sign David Goodwillie insulted every decent-minded fan, betrayed the traditions of a proud club and sent a clear but sickening message to every girl and woman who foolishly thought football might be for them.

She withdrew her support and sponsorship as her criticism was quickly echoed by her friend Nicola Sturgeon and her fellow Raith Rovers fan Gordon Brown. Principled resignations followed from the club and its boardroom while the women’s team severed links with Stark’s Park amid a crushing wave of condemnation.

Of course, the directors had been warned and knew McDermid’s criticism might spark more but chairman John Sim apparently expected a little flak and a few days of bad headlines. It was a price worth paying, apparently, for getting a striker who could shoot the club to promotion.

So far, so squalid but the only reason Sim thought his club would not suffer serious or lasting reputational damage by signing a rapist, who has never shown a shred of remorse, decency or contrition for his actions, is that no one else had.

His former team mate, David Robertson, might have retired after judges ruled him a rapist but Goodwillie never stopped playing. When Clyde picked him just days after his appeal was rejected, no one had a thing to say apart from The Sunday Post and a few honourable but exceptional politicians.

At the time, asked if Goodwillie should be sacked or suspended instead of selected, Clyde chairman Norrie Innes asked: “For what?”

Two short words that sum up the moral bankruptcy of Scottish football in this affair. Goodwillie should have been blackballed. Clubs shouldn’t have signed him, opponents shouldn’t have played against him. The authorities should have questioned his continuing career before condemning it. Supporters should have turned their backs on him (instead some sang songs about his victim before going online to threaten to rape her again).

All the while, fans were smeared with warm words about the importance of girls and women in this bright new era of respect and equality in football. What an absolute joke.

McDermid might well have been sickened to think of Goodwillie running out at Stark’s Park in a jersey with her name on it but she may well have been there in August 2019 when he ran out at Stark’s Park to play – and score – for Clyde. He has not been playing football in disguise.

It is easy to understand Denise Clair’s mixed feelings today as she welcomes the outrage but asks where it was four years ago when he lost his appeal but kept playing? Or five years ago when she won her civil action and he kept playing? Or ten years ago, when charges against him were inexplicably dropped before he was quickly welcomed back to the Scotland set-up before getting his big transfer to England.

There are many questions that have been asked many times about that decision but there have been no answers at all.

Now this scandal has, finally, got the first minister’s attention, perhaps she might ask the Lord Advocate?