
Rehabilitation or Rejection: Sport's Moral Dilemma
After release from jail should a conviction for rape mean an end to your sporting career?
Footballer Ched Evans is not the first sportsman who, after serving a sentence for rape and protesting his innocence, has tried to re-start his career. In March 1995 boxer Mike Tyson was released having served half of a 6 year sentence for rape. Unlike Evans, his career resumed almost immediately. His comeback fight was watched by over a million and a half Americans, a then record figure for pay per view TV. So what has changed in the twenty years that separate these two events? Why was one man free to work again in his sport, while the other is unable to gain employment? To discuss the issues we are joined by Anna Krien, author of "Night Games: Sex, Power and Sport", a book that follows the rape trial of a young Australian Rules footballer; Martin Daubney, former sports reporter for the News of the World newspaper in the UK, and the former editor of Loaded magazine, a tabloid publication aimed at young men; and Professor Marie Hardin, Dean of the College of Communications at The Pennsylvania State University.
“Distressed and Humiliated” My Ordeal at the hands of African Football Officials
One of Africa’s leading footballer’s reveals the horrendous treatment she received from African football authorities. Rival teams had questioned Genoveva Anonma’s gender but instead of instigating proper medical gender tests, they simply forced her to strip naked straight after Equatorial Guinea won the Africa Cup of Nations.
Stuart Scott – “As Cool as the Other Side of the Pillow”
The death of US sports broadcaster Stuart Scott from cancer aged 49 this week drew tributes not only from sporting greats like LeBron James, and luminaries from the world of broadcasting, but from Barack Obama himself. So why was Scott’s career so influential, not only to the way America watched its sport, but to the country's wider culture? We look at his passion, determination and catchphrases.
Olympics Change
We track the progress of the transition of the London 2012 Olympic Stadium into a venue fit for hosting matches at the Rugby World Cup later this year and West Ham football club from 2016.
Return to Sydney
We hear from Australia's cricketers, who returned this week to the Sydney Cricket Ground for their first Test match since the death of batsman and team mate Phillip Hughes at the same ground.
Sporting Witness… goes back to one of the most unlikely sporting events of the Cold War, a visit by the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team to the Soviet Union.
(Photo Left: Boxer Mike Tyson, convicted of rape in 1992. Credit: Getty Images. Photo Right: Footballer Ched Evans convicted of rape in 2012. Credit: PA)
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- Sat 10 Jan 2015 10:05GMTѿý World Service Online
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Not by the Playbook
Inspirational stories from around the world. Interviews with people defying the odds