WILL we ever see Adam Johnson on a football pitch again? I hope not. But I wouldn’t put money on it. There is always one club desperate enough that they’d sign a criminal, regardless of what they’d done and the public’s wrath.

Ched Evans was nearly signed last year despite spending years behind bars for rape. Lee Hughes was sentenced to six years in jail for causing death by dangerous driving. Released after just three, he was snapped up by Oldham and later played for Notts County and Port Vale. Marlon King was sacked by Wigan in 2009 after he was convicted of sexual assault and ABH. He was jailed for 18 months and placed on the sex offenders register after he groped a young woman in a nightclub and broke her nose when she rebuffed his advances. Yet Birmingham felt the need to sign him when he was released.

A few years later, King caused a pile-up on the A46 when he crashed while eating ice cream behind the wheel of his Porsche. The three-car smash put one man in hospital for weeks and King was jailed again.