The most broadly discussed football topic of the season has reached new heights this week as yet another club, this time Oldham Athletic, has looked at, then declined, signing Ched Evans.

The situation has rumbled on for a few months and has forced football into uncertain territory, presenting unanswerable questions and placing on the game a moral burden which it is clearly not comfortable bearing.

For those unfamiliar with Evans’ story, he is a Welsh international who, while playing for Sheffield United in 2012, was convicted of rape. The abridged version is this: a friend of his met a very drunk girl on a night out and took her back to a hotel room. On hearing about this, Evans also went to the hotel and had his own way with the girl despite no permission being given for him to do so. The player has always maintained his innocence, saying the act was consensual, but the evidence presented to the jury was enough to convince a Court that he had committed rape.

But now he is out on probation, having served half of his five-year prison sentence and is on the search for a new club. Sheffield United talked about taking him back but pressure from sponsors, patrons and fans turned them off the idea. One or two others have considered and most recently Oldham went through the same process before eventually succumbing to public pressure and turning him down. Hibernians, on the Mediterranean island of Malta and not the be confused with Hibs of Scotland, offered him a contract but the terms of his probation meant he wasn’t allowed overseas.

So this is the mess in which football finds itself, desperately looking to the outside world for some sort of guidance and finding nothing but angry faces and condemnation snarling back at it. It is very clear that the public do not want Evans playing professional football again; to many it is a cut and dried case that a rapist simply should not be afforded such an opportunity, no ifs, not buts.

But there is a but, a rather large one. The English justice system convicted him, set his punishment and then awarded him his early release. He has not fully ‘served his time’ yet but the Crown is satisfied that he has been dealt with appropriately and need no longer be in prison and therefore should be allowed to rebuild his life on the outside, so long as he stays within the conditions of his parole. Perhaps he should have been given a longer sentence, but that is a different debate entirely and one I’d most likely agree with.

However, the fact is that, rightly or wrongly, he is now out and once somebody has been punished for their crimes are they not entitled to a fresh start and the opportunities of a free man alongside the rest of us? Must they carry their mistake with them for the rest of their lives, branded and unable to move on? What is our legal system worth if we abandon the principle of second chances?

The flip side of that argument is that Evans’ job is not that of a typical offender. For a bricklayer to slip silently back into society is one thing, but for a player to be cheered from the terraces by women and children alike upon his release is something else altogether. That is where things get murky and the reason for football’s inertia in taking a definite stance on the matter. There is no legal blockade but the game is what it is because of public support, take that away from any club and financial trouble will not be far behind. But is it right that the public should take justice into its own hands?

I am not arguing on Evans’ side here, I don’t believe the man deserves any sympathy whatsoever having committed the most abhorrent of crimes. Indeed, I am not arguing on either side in particular, simply trying to put across the fact that we must not allow one of the most cherished principles of a centuries-old justice system to be overwhelmed by public outcry. Any offender is entitled to rebuild his life when his punishment has been fulfilled, why should a man be punished further and have a ceiling placed over the opportunities afforded him simply because his job happens to be a high profile one?

Many attack him as unrepentant but this idea is preposterous: he is still in the process of appealing his innocence, why would we expect him to repent for a crime he did not commit. And if his appeal is successful, what then? If it turns out he was wrongly convicted will there be an outpouring of public sympathy and apologies from all who have decried that he should never play professionally again? Probably not. Such an outcome is unlikely, of course, and we must assume that the guilty verdict was correct, but stranger things have happened.

The bottom line is this: if we truly believe in our legal system, that which underpins society not just in England but across the Commonwealth, then Ched Evans must be allowed to play football again. We might not like seeing it and the public is always allowed to voice an opinion, but that opinion must never dictate law. Of course, many clubs will not want to employ him, maybe none will now, but if any do then that is their prerogative. If fans of that club then protest because they don’t want their side associated with a rapist then that, in turn, is their prerogative. It is not for you, I or anyone else though, to block that club’s right to sign a player or Evans’ right to earn a living. The system has done its job, it may be unsavoury, but as a society, we must now do ours.

Hugo Saye is an English journalist who spent nine months in Jamaica shadowing 2012-2013 National Premier League champions Harbour View FC, where he spoke openly with stars of both sport and politics and discovered the importance of football in the Caribbean island, which formed the background of his book, Of Garrisons and Goalscorers.