Ilombe Mboyo's long road to an international call-up

"Mboyo took a different route. Leaving Anderlecht in his mid-teens to join Club Brugge, he took a few wrong turns and eventually received a three-year prison sentence."

"A few wrong turns"? He participated in a gang-rape of a 14-year-old girl FFS.

Why did John Chapman feel this particular detail wasn't worth including.

Sorry, my last sentence should have a question mark on the end rather than a full stop.

Can only support AB2's comment - whilst all prisoners should have an opportunity to be rehabilitated, and in some way's Mboyo's 'journey' should be applauded, the nature of the offence he committed is quite sickening.

Certainly puts the disciplinary travails of some Premier League footballers into some context. Was there a particular reason you didn't provide this context, John?

Whilst i dont usually agree with the "He Should Never Be Allowed Back into The Game" mentality that you get when footballers commit crimes...........
..In this case it would be entirely justified if he were banished forever...

And whatever we think about rehabilitation,it is surprising that he only got three years for this particular offence.

So over to you author...
Why didnt you mention what he actually did...???????

I'd just like to say that this John Chapman isn't me, even if the WSC archive seems confused on the point. I write about Boston United, he writes about Belgian football.

And for what its worth I'd have mentioned what Mboyo did

Completely agree with AB2. Surely the crime he committed should have been mentioned. I'm all for rehabilitation, and whether he should still be able to play or not is another argument, but the reader should know the full facts.

First up, apologies for not responding sooner. I don't often check out the WSC pages. Regarding the Mboyo piece, I first wrote it three years ago (www.belgofoot.be/pele-mboyo-takes-the-road-less-travelled/) on my blog. The focus was on the story of someone who had served a prison sentence and then became a professional footballer because of the 'football in prison' programme. Now no longer funded. When he was called up for the national team, I thought this was worthy of mention again and WSC agreed to put it in the website. I did not mention the nature of the crime because I did not know it at the time. Should I have checked? Possibly, but my interest was in the rehabilitation rather than in the crime itself. He was a teenager without a job when the horrendous crime was committed. Should he therefore have been banned from any paid work or just professional football? So, to sum up, had I known about the rape, I like to think I would still have written the piece with the same conclusion. Otherwise, what is prison for?
John