Footballers, Sex, Money: What's Gone Wrong?

This programme contains some strong language.

Earlier this year, three footballers from Leicester City

filmed themselves in an orgy while on tour with the club.

The video caused outrage,

as the players sexually humiliated the women involved.

Come on, lick it now!

But stories like this are nothing new in the world of football.

Football sex scandals are hitting headlines

and it's their actions off the pitch that are making the front pages,

from orgies to underage sex to rape.

I want to find out if football culture

of promiscuous sex and predatory behaviour

is breeding a worrying attitude towards young women.

They will pick out girls and be like,

"I want that one, that one and that one on my table."

Or are the women just as much to blame?

A lot of WAGs knew what they were marrying into.

They get all the goods in return.

That is a form of prostitution.

And has the spotlight on footballers' personal lives gone too far?

If you can keep it out of the newspapers, that's fantastic.

You don't really want it hitting the headlines.

And it also uncovers some personal experiences I wasn't expecting.

What are you scared of?

I look at my mum, I look at women who have married footballers,

I don't know how you trust. I don't know.

My name's Amal Fashanu

and I grew up in the footballing spotlight.

I'm making this film because I'm the daughter of a football player

and I'm the niece of a footballer and a cousin of a footballer

so football seems to be in my life quite a lot.

Sex scandals in football seem as frequent as goals

and I partly blame this culture for the divorce of my parents.

Their relationship ended when I was two years old, after my mum

found out that my dad, John Fashanu, was having an affair.

We've seen a host of high-profile footballers

involved in controversial stories,

from Ryan Giggs' affair with his brother's wife,

to Ched Evans jailed for rape.

Football has been painted as a dark and seedy world.

It always seems to be lately that footballers are there

in the press for women and sex.

Are we to blame footballers? Are we to blame society?

Are we to blame the people that pay footballers this amount of money?

With the Premier elite earning up to £300,000 a week,

players have overnight access to money, fame

and an exclusive nightlife where they are the centre of attention.

So what really goes on after dark?

I head to one of London's most popular clubs for footballers.

MUSIC: Earthquake by DJ Fresh

In the club, I meet up with Danielle Mason,

who has first-hand experience with footballers after dark.

She worked as a promoter for many years

and has insider knowledge into this exclusive world.

-Oh, how are you?

-Very nice. Wow.

Can you just explain to me

basically what your job has been for the past few years?

So when I was 21, I started, erm, glamour modelling

and then, with that, I was obviously always out

at, you know, like, your Chinawhites

and all your different clubs in the West End.

I'd bring a lot of good-looking girls with me to the tables,

and then I thought, "Do you know what? I'm the one bringing all the people in

"so I might as well become a club promoter myself."

'Danielle's job was to make sure

'everyone in the club was having a good time.

'Many of her top clients were Premiership footballers.'

When it comes to footballers,

is there any type of special requirement,

anything special that happens within the club?

They always get, like, the superstar treatment

whenever they go to a club,

like, they will have the top table so everyone can see them.

They will pick out girls in the club and be like,

"I want that one, that one and that one on my table," and then...

So, yeah, no, they request girls.

How's your job different from what you call a pimp?

I can't believe you're asking me that.

It's nothing like a pimp, I'm just working in a nightclub

and if guys that have bought a table off me want to...

want girls on their table then I'm just going to put them on there

because that's what they want.

You get the girls that will specifically go down to the club

to pull a footballer and they'll be hanging around the VIP bits.

What do you really think that they're after?

I can only imagine that it's either to sell a story

or something to do with money, maybe like fame,

they're thinking long run, I don't know.

After the club, do these girls stay, go?

Is there afterparties? What happens?

With the top footballers, they've got a lot of...entourage around them

that will literally just be like, "Look, they need this and this.

"Get them out the back door so they don't get papped."

I know that they've taken quite a few girls back to hotel rooms

and, you know, gangbanged

and had all fuelled sorts of things going on.

Have you ever known any successful relationships

that have developed from a club?

I have heard stories of girls getting bought flats

and getting paid off and being bought cars

to keep their mouth shut.

I've heard that with a couple of really well-known footballers.

There was a particular girl that was out

and she was very well known for going with the footballers

and I remember one time she was actually...

there were some wide boys

that were linked to a particular big footballer

and I think they basically threatened her

that if she was to sell any stories...

-That they would do something to her?

-Yeah, she wouldn't get away with it.

That's kind of scary, though, in a way.

Yeah, but she shouldn't be a slag then, should she?

SHE CHUCKLES

You know, they have so much power

-that something might actually happen to you.

-They do.

They've got so much money that they could just pay anyone off

to...look after them, do you know what I mean?

I think Danielle has thrown more questions than answers.

I'm feeling like maybe I have to explore more the role of the female

because, to be honest, I don't think that it's all to do with men now.

Thank you so much, it was so nice, I had such a good time.

-That's all right.

-That wine got to me.

-See you later.

-Bye.

I want to find out how this money and power can affect a young footballer

and who's to blame.

I've travelled to the North of England

to meet with international sporting legend Dwight Yorke.

-So, I can't believe I'm in Cheshire.

-Yeah, well, welcome to Cheshire.

Dwight's first year at Manchester United

saw him as top goal-scorer in the Premiership.

He was one of the highest-paid strikers that year.

What advice would you give to a 17-, 16-year-old

trying to make it in football?

It is a short career and I would say to them make as much money

as you can because when it stops... it does eventually stop.

You will make mistakes along the way

but how you minimise the mistakes that you have made.

You're young, you're rich, you're talented.

How do you keep focused?

I think it's difficult at the beginning,

you're really going into unknown territory in respect.

You know, you get recognised on the street,

people asking you for autographs, you're hanging out places,

you're getting more attention than you're used to.

It's very difficult to deal with some of these things

at the very beginning.

What are the temptations that footballers nowadays fall into?

Where do you start? Where do you want me to start?

We talked about women, we're talking about alcoholism,

we're talking about drugs, you know, social media, gambling.

All these things are a prime factor that has happened

within our sport in the past.

You know, you train hard, you come home,

1:30-2:00, you're through the door,

you get up, you went to have a power nap, that's fine.

-5:00, 6:00, you get up, you have your dinner...

-You're bored.

..you're living alone, you're bored. What would you do?

Call a mate, OK, we'll go out for a drive, go for dinner,

we're back in, we'll go watch a movie.

You can only do those things for a certain period of time.

If you have anything about you, you don't want to be doing that all.

You want to get something out of your system.

You've got these beautiful young ladies next to you

and you're feeling macho about yourself.

It's a good feel factor at that time. I mean...

What do you tell these young guys? Not to?

Dwight's career continued to go from strength to strength

but with the successes came problems off the pitch.

He had a string of relationships with high-profile "It" girls,

including his infamous relationship with Katie Price.

I don't talk about my personal life

because it's been in the public domain for a number of years

and I just feel that...

Did you want it to be in the public domain?

I don't think anyone wants their private life to be out in the media

but that's something that seems to be a fashionable thing.

You've got OK Magazine, you've got this one,

you've got all kinds of stuff going on.

Some people like that, some people don't, ideally, you know.

But the media sometimes forces you down that road.

Of course, the more successful you are on the football pitch,

the more attention you bring.

I've had my fair share of headlines in the media and, yeah,

at the beginning it seems great and it seems OK

but it does come to a stage where it does not just affect me,

as I said, it affected my family.

I think that's what hurts, when the media gets involved.

They're relentless at it, that's what sells papers,

they want to know, and I dread to live the life of a top athlete now

because everything that you do is being scrutinised.

Would I be the same?

-I think, yeah...

-AMAL LAUGHS

I really would, because I was happy doing it then, back in those days.

Dwight enjoyed the part he played off the field,

but what happens to the girls who get caught up in these sex scandals?

Football gossip is commonplace in the tabloids.

Kiss-and-tell stories on famous players

can sell for up to hundreds and thousands of pounds.

I'm on my way to meet Helen Wood.

I've read a bit about her

and I've been investigating a little bit, obviously,

so I do know her story.

Helen first came to the nation's attention

after she took part in a threesome

with England player Wayne Rooney in 2010.

Since her story came out, Helen has built a career for herself.

She's released a book, writes a regular column in a newspaper

and has won Big Brother.

It's important for me to be honest as well

because my mum was the wife of a footballer, you know,

they did break up, and I'm not sure of all the ins and outs

but I do know it was because of women.

And it's women like this who kiss and tell

who end up breaking marriages

and, you know, I didn't grow up with a dad because of that.

She also owns a salon in Bolton,

which is where we've arranged to meet.

I'm doing a documentary where I'm kind of getting to know more

about this secret world of football.

I've got different views on different things,

like, I don't have a problem with footballers sleeping with girls,

provided they're not married.

A lot of people watching would actually be like,

"Well, that's exactly what you did,"

so you're saying something but then in the way you've done that...

-So it sounds contradictory, obviously.

-Exactly.

Whether people want to believe this or not,

I did not go out one night and think,

"Oh, there we go, I'm going to do that

"and then tomorrow I'm going to make a bit of money off it."

I didn't think like that.

If people choose to think that's how I thought then that's up to them

but I know how I thought and that is not what happened.

So you slept with a footballer, you know he's married,

you know, you're with another girl who's meant to be your friend.

At this point, what's crossing your mind?

To be honest, it's something that pisses me off

how it constantly gets brought up

how I'm this home-wrecker and stuff.

I wasn't a home-wrecker in my eyes.

Why is a girl a slag for sleeping with a footballer, when he's married?

That's bollocks! He is married!

The story of Helen's threesome was leaked by the other woman involved,

Helen's then friend Jennifer Thompson.

Helen later sold her side of the story.

Reportedly, she was paid a five-figure sum.

The difference is, basically,

that you didn't plan, set off to do that.

I denied everything for a year and then the press just kind of...

pushed it that far that it ended up coming out.

My world got flipped upside down, through my own fault,

I did something that I shouldn't have done necessarily,

but I didn't try trapping anybody.

Instead, I was trapped,

and because I didn't have sufficient funds

to stop my name from being outed,

erm, I ended up having the book thrown at me.

For that particular injunction that I would've needed at the time,

I was looking at £50,000.

Where was I going to find £50,000 from?

Do you ever think about these footballers' wives

and how they must feel and what it must be like?

In a way, do you not sometimes feel like saying sorry or communicating, like, what...

No, I think if these wives choose to stay with their husbands

then that's them saying, "Well, that's OK."

I'm not saying that all footballers are the same,

I'm not saying all these WAGs

have gone out there to marry for money,

that would be so unfair to say that,

but I think that a lot of WAGs out there

knew what they were marrying into

and they thought it was acceptable to marry...

Like, they get all the goods in return,

the guy can go out and behave exactly how he wants.

That is a form of prostitution.

Why are they taking them back?

Would they take them back if he was a chippie worker,

if he peeled potatoes all day?

No, they fucking wouldn't,

they take them back because they like the lifestyle.

What can I say?

I know how it feels to have your family wrecked

because of someone who has just come in,

thought it was a great night out and, you know, done this.

When I'm saying it in my family and the impact it had to me

and growing up without a dad, I clearly know, it hurts me.

I look at this girl and I'm thinking, "Hold on a second,

"there was one of these girls, or many of these girls,

"which made my mum definitely move away from my father."

I was too young to remember what happened to MY parents,

but how do you manage the aftermath when stories

about your relationship end up on the front pages of the press?

I'm going to meet up with Jude Cisse,

ex-wife of French international and Liverpool star Djibril Cisse.

Hi, how are you? So lovely to meet you.

-And you. Come in.

-Thank you so much for having me.

-Wow, you've got a beautiful house.

-Thank you.

'Like any WAG, the house is complete with its own dressing room,

'and she offers to show me her impressive collection.'

You are one lucky woman.

See, a girl's best friend, isn't it, all these shoes.

It's about 11 years' worth here.

Before marrying a footballer, you know, who were you?

I was a qualified lecturer, so I used to lecture in post-16 college.

I had a lot of pressure when I got married to Djibril

cos he went to ten clubs in ten years

so it was very difficult to have a job in lecturing,

because obviously it requires you to be there at 9:00 in the morning

to teach people and stuff,

so it was something that, erm, I gave up in the end.

How was your wedding day, what was that like?

It was a three-day event, we got married in a big castle in Wales

and we had over 200 people there.

Yeah, it was the fairy-tale wedding,

it was something that I'd always dreamed of.

'Jude's lavish £100,000 wedding was covered by Hello magazine.'

Oh, wow! He dressed red!

It was just after the Champions League as well,

so he was red for Liverpool.

'Jude filed for divorce from Djibril on the grounds of adultery.'

People always think, oh, the typical footballer,

he's cheated or whatever,

but there were a lot of... factors that broke the marriage.

A lot of factors.

Although I have all these nice things,

you have to invest for the future, and I think a lot

of the difficulty was that he didn't know how to invest.

He didn't know how to put things together and manage things.

He's never had to do that.

So it was a lot of stress for me trying to keep him grounded as well.

Obviously, he was in the front page of the newspapers

for assaulting me and stuff like that so it was very difficult

and that's what I found challenging because I knew

I was going to get phone calls the next day from my family,

from my uncles, from everything,

and it was a massive shock to a lot of people.

How do you deal with that?

I think you just know that the media can...put things out of proportion.

You know, it isn't easy at times and you have to deal with it.

There's no way of not dealing with it because when it's there

and you're faced with it, what can you do?

'Jude and Djibril separated after seven years.'

So he's left, told the children "I'll be home every weekend"

and never come back again.

Now, they're lucky if they see him...

Well, last year, they saw him three times,

this year, they've seen him once.

For so long, I wanted my parents to be together.

My mum didn't give my dad a second chance,

and she was very, very hard,

and how many chances can you really give a man

and especially a footballer?

But you're quite bitter when it comes to men, though, aren't you?

Yeah, I am, I'm angry. I'm angry because he hurt my mum.

-I was very angry as well.

-I'm angry.

It's what I had to learn to do, to let go of that anger,

because you can never move on if you keep that anger.

'For Jude, being married to a footballer

'wasn't the fairy tale she was expecting.'

Is it possible to avoid these problems

and have a happy marriage with a player?

I've decided to spend some time with my friend Olivia

at her home in London.

Hi, Olivia, it's me, Amal.

Hi. Hi, Olivia.

-How are you?

-So nice to see you. How are you?

-Good, and you?

Good. Now I'm even better, I'm in your house.

'Olivia is not only a good friend,

'she's also the wife of Alex Song, a Premiership footballer

'who has played for the likes of Arsenal, West Ham and Barcelona.'

Here is the African Cup.

-Oh, my gosh, two?

-Yeah.

-Wow!

The African Cup in 2010.

Wow, and the trophy's really nice and it matches my nails.

Ooh, maybe I should keep one.

THEY LAUGH

Wow!

These are the good sides of football, I mean, automatic pool!

I'm not complaining, you know!

AMAL CHEERS

'Olivia and I have been friends for years.

'She and Alex have always seemed to have the perfect relationship.'

When did you get married to Alex? How many years has it been?

-11 years now.

-11 years?

We were so young.

I remember when we came here, he was, like, so impressed

because he was in the changing rooms with Thierry Henry and Robert Pires.

He was like, "Can you imagine?

"When I'm dressing up, I have Thierry Henry next to me,

"like, can you imagine?"

I couldn't, because I don't really know football.

'I tell Olivia about meeting Helen Wood

'and ask how she handles trust in her marriage.'

As a wife, it's quite hard to cope with all the girls

who want to have my husband.

When I go out with him, let's say we go to a club and stuff, yeah,

I see the girls ready to throw themselves, you know.

I just feel kind of sad, honestly.

THEY CHUCKLE For them!

I do feel sad for them, because they just see the glitter.

Looking for someone just because of his bank account,

I'm not really sure it will last.

Every time that I meet, like, a woman who's married to one or an ex-wife

or something like that, all the stories that they tell me,

they are very similar to what my mum lived.

What do you expect for your special one?

I think my whole idea growing up was how the man will come in

and swoop the woman off and the woman will live this great life

and he will protect her.

I think, in the modern day, the roles have kind of reversed.

You are struggling with trust a lot, like, you have a wall.

What are you scared of?

I genuinely... I don't know how you trust.

I don't know, I don't know.

Everywhere you look in the game,

there appears to be money and lavish lifestyles,

but there's one part of football that still has a well-earned reputation

with no hint of a scandal.

I want to find out what women's football is doing right

that the men's game seems to have got so wrong.

Bend it in!

I've been invited to watch the Basildon Ladies

play their Sunday match.

This year, more people than ever watched women's football.

England Ladies came third in the World Cup,

an achievement not matched by the men since 1966.

Another three, come on. Well done, good work.

Despite all this,

the women's game still only has a small following compared to the men.

While the girls are warming up, I take the opportunity

to have a chat with their coach, Danny Greaves.

He played professionally for a number of top clubs

but grew tired of the men's game.

The trouble with footballers today is from a young age

they're completely pampered and surrounded in a bowl.

They become talented boys at 14, 15,

and don't have to do anything in life any more.

Therefore they grow up, they earn good money,

even great money in some quarters.

The problem with that is that they have no sense of realism

about the world and, consequently, most of them

and quite a lot of them do believe they're above the law.

And therefore there where the problems start,

"If I misbehave, oh, the football club will look after me,"

or, "If I misbehave, oh, I'm a footballer, I'll get away with it."

Unfortunately, it's a culture that we're now breeding.

With the women at the moment is the enthusiasm for the game,

you know, the willingness to learn, to get better.

If I was a betting man, I would say England women

would win the World Cup before England men will.

MUSIC: Bitch Better Have My Money by Rihanna

'After the warm-up, I head into the changing room,

'a place strictly off limits in men's football.'

Hi, girls. Whoa. I'm like whoop!

THEY CHUCKLE

Why do you actually think that footballers hit headlines

for the wrong reasons?

Money.

It's not massive in the women's game

but it is in the men's game, as you know.

You know, the wages that the guys are on is extortionate,

it's just unbelievable.

You know, what we earn in probably ten years is what they earn in a week.

Would you say, because of obviously the lack of money in a way and et cetera,

that the women's game is actually a bit purer than the men's game?

For us, the game, we just play for the love of the game.

We're not here for any money, we're here to win and turn up as a team,

whereas in the men's game, if they lose,

they're still going to get their bonus,

they're still going to get all their money and things like that

so, for us, it's just pure... There's no incentive for that.

What do you think it will take for change to come?

You won't see a massive change

until, again, it's built into the leagues,

till our system...there is a bit more money fed in

so things can be changed.

So until we have a rise in stats and people watching, turning up,

nothing's really going to change at the moment.

Is it about attitudes?

Do you think that in society we kind of view footballers

and put them in this pedestal, kind of like semi-gods in a way?

Rugby in England is massive.

You don't see a lot of rugby players going out,

creating the same kind of headlines as the footballers do.

Now, why is that?

In England, I think it's just the fact that football

is put on a massive pedestal

and every other sport is put underneath that

and therefore the people who play that sport are put underneath that.

One, two, three...

Great, Kirsty!

I think the girls are great, they're really down to earth,

really normal and it really, really seems

like these girls just genuinely love the sport.

Go on, Blues!

They're not here for the money, they're not here for the people,

they're not here for the crowd,

they're actually here because they bloody love football.

WHISTLE BLOWS

Well done!

According to the girls,

the reason their male equivalents are making headlines

is for their obscene pay cheques.

A professional female footballer earns £23,000 a year,

which is equivalent to a day's wage

for the likes of Wayne Rooney and John Terry.

But for some footballers it's not all about the money.

I've been told about a Premiership player

who chose to walk away from the game for good.

He was forced to make a choice between football or his family.

He chose his family.

MUSIC: My Type by Saint Motel

So I've come to meet David Bentley.

He's one of the only players that I know that has actually

decided to step away from the football world,

and I hope that he'll have a really open, honest take

because I think that he has nothing to lose at this point.

David Bentley climbed the ranks at Arsenal, played for England

and was tipped to be the next David Beckham.

But at just 29 he decided to hang up his boots and retire from the sport.

-Hola, que tal?

-Hola, bien.

-Ah, hablas espanol!

-Un poco.

-Ahh, I was trying, I was trying it!

-You speak Spanish?

Yeah, it's my first language.

'He moved his young family to Spain

'and now runs a restaurant and club business catering to holiday-makers.'

This looks so cool.

So did you always want to be a footballer?

It was my dream, it was the first thing I was good at

and probably the only thing really I was good at.

If football was your dream and you loved it so much,

I feel like something really intense and strong must have happened

to kind of make you change your mind in this way.

I was earning the money but the money was bringing me nothing.

The further I got on, the less I enjoyed it.

Friends, family, everything was breaking down around me

so it was the kind of, you know, "more money, more problems".

But why? Is it the day-to-day? What makes football less enjoyable?

It's the pressure, the focus, the people that surround it.

The players are there now to be shot at.

It's changed, with social media and the focus

and...society has become a lot more jealous and envious.

Was it, like, the women, the money, the agents?

Do you think, in a way, you were just losing who you were?

The whole caring side of what it should be all about is gone,

it's a ruthless business.

You're a commodity and a piece of meat.

You sign that contract, you become the public's possession

and you have to play that role.

The best ones who play it well are probably the most successful.

Well, look, do you know what?

This seems like a very good plan to me.

I feel like it takes a lot of courage for someone to say no

to a 60-, 70-grand salary. It was his dream.

He no longer believes in that dream.

It's not just about the money, it's about culture, attitude,

social media, the era we live in.

It's to do with so many different things that it almost becomes

harder to focus and target something, because it's a mix of everything.

David made me realise that all the money, fame and pressure

can have a negative affect on players,

so who's looking out for their welfare?

Back in England, I've set up a meeting with one of the biggest

and best-known managers in the game - Harry Redknapp.

Harry's son Jamie played for Spurs and Liverpool

and he's uncle to Chelsea legend Frank Lampard.

I'm actually quite excited and quite nervous, I don't know what

he's going to say but I hope he can finally say something

which is just going to determine,

you know, why are these footballers hitting headlines?

Harry has been managing players for some of the biggest clubs

in the UK for the past 30 years

so is well placed to offer insight into a player's behaviour.

-Good morning.

-Hello, good morning.

-How are you?

-So good.

-OK, good.

-So lovely to meet you.

-And you, nice to see you.

-Thank you very much for joining me.

-How's dad, all right?

Yes, he's good, actually.

Could you start off by telling me what does a manager actually do?

He's responsible for...picking the team and signing players and...

the general day-to-day running of the football side of the club -

organising training and looking after 40-odd young men

who, every day, one of them's got a problem.

Like a father figure in many ways, really.

So when there is a problem,

for example, they get out of hand, they've gone out one night,

they've hit headlines, how do you actually manage that?

You have to manage it as best you can.

If you can keep it out of the newspapers, that's fantastic to start with.

You don't really want it hitting the headlines,

you want to keep it within house if you can, but then you have to talk

to the player involved and tell him that this is not the way to behave.

You know, you're supposed to be setting an example

out there to young kids, you know, and it doesn't go down well.

With cases like the Ched Evans case

or, for example, Leicester City boys,

do you think they'll be re-signed?

I don't know what Ched's situation is.

Obviously, he's paid a heavy price as well.

You know, he's lost his football status and...

but, you know, and the young lads at Leicester,

I think a couple of them have got fixed up with new clubs.

Hopefully, they've learnt their lesson

and won't misbehave like that again.

Do you remember any incidences where you thought,

"Oh, my God, this player is such a nuisance, like,

"this is just going to cause some hassle"?

Quite often, it's the most talented ones who can be the biggest problem.

If someone steps out of line who's not a good player and you might want to get rid of him anyway,

you'll say, "Oh, he's broke the rules, bump, he's gone."

If it's a top player who's worth £20 million or something

then you tend...he gets treated, there's no doubt about it,

he'll get treated differently.

You don't suddenly sack him, because someone else will take him.

He's an important player to your... and that is a fact.

It's not the right way it should be done

but that's the way it is, it works that way.

-Someone's worth, got good value...

-It's the money.

Yeah, you can't afford just to sack 'em.

Thank you very much for your time. It's been amazing, Harry.

-Nice to talk to you.

-Thank you.

-OK, pleasure.

SHE MOUTHS

I've seen from this interview that, you know, the more money you have,

the more stuff you can get away with.

Is that fair? Should it be like that?

Can a player get away with X, Y, Z just because he's worth 20 million?

Harry had made a lot of interesting points

but something that stood out to me

was that he believed Ched Evans had paid a heavy price.

Ched Evans, the professional footballer convicted of rape,

has been freed from prison today on licence.

Ched Evans was a striker for Sheffield United.

In 2012, he was convicted of raping a 19-year-old girl

at a hotel in Wales and sentenced to five years in prison.

After serving half of this time,

he was released and was set to return to football.

The Evans case caused an unprecedented legal

and moral maze for the industry.

Should Ched Evans be allowed to play for Sheffield United again?

Here's the straightforward question -

are people who go to prison entitled to come out of prison

and try to re-build their lives or aren't they?

He's served his time, he's served two years,

but the rape was not violent...

I think that the owners need to think really long and hard

about the fact that when you take a footballer on

you're not taking just a footballer these days,

you're also taking on a role model.

Ched has always denied any wrongdoing.

The application seeks to demonstrate that the acts

I engaged in on that night were consensual in nature

and not rape.

The Criminal Case Review Commission has referred his case

back to the Court of Appeal and Ched is awaiting the result.

Ched Evans isn't the first top footballer to be accused of rape

but he is the first to be sentenced.

Many accusations have been made against footballers for rape,

sexual assault, and there is even a current player

facing child-sex-offence charges.

I'm meeting Amy, a 34-year-old who's been raped,

as I want to hear from a victim's point of view.

When you see footballers come up in rape cases on TV,

what feelings does that make you have?

It makes me angry.

What makes me most angry about it is the lack of remorse.

Rape is not that far down the rung on how serious it is -

you change someone's life, you ruin someone's life.

Once a footballer has been convicted and served their sentence,

should they be allowed back in the game?

If you're going into government and you'd raped someone,

would you be allowed your job back? No chance.

If you were a teacher in a school and you'd had that conviction,

would you be able to have your job back? Absolutely no chance,

and I think especially if you're in a position like that, you know,

the football club need to take a bit of responsibility

and think about the message that they're sending to fans,

to the rest of their club, and they need to realise how serious that is.

How has being raped affected you?

It's affected me in every area of my life.

It's affected my work, I've had to leave two jobs.

It's affected my friends, I've lost a lot of friends through it.

It's affected my family who have been hurt by it.

It's really affected my health quite negatively.

I'm not sure people quite realise

the impact that something like rape has.

Do you think that people find it hard to hear about your story?

I think they find it very difficult,

I think they find the word "rape" difficult to hear.

Quite often you get...quite cold, you know,

people don't know how to handle it,

and then there's always these questions, people,

one of the first things they do is...there's victim-blaming,

so they question how.

It's such a horrible thing to happen, is she telling the truth?

I think that a lot of people in society feel like rape

is not that serious

and in the footballing world, where it's male domination

kind of thing going on, I just can't imagine being a victim of rape

and having to come out publicly in the footballing world, to be honest.

The 19-year-old in the Ched Evans case

had her name leaked on Twitter

and had to change her identity five times.

It's one of the worse cases of victim-blaming

ever seen in this country.

People took to Twitter in their thousands to attack the character

of this young woman to query her account of events.

I'm beginning to see another problem is how we view rape in the UK.

I don't understand why someone would make a hashtag

saying "it's not rape if..."

I mean, it's not... Why would you even start that?

Rape isn't being dealt with in any type of serous way.

I don't think that this is something that should, at any point,

by anyone, be taken as a joke.

I've decided to contact a sociologist

to see why rape culture seems to be accepted in football.

-Hi, Amal.

-Hello, lovely to meet you.

-Really lovely to meet you too.

'Liz Kelly is a professor at London Metropolitan University.

'She has a PhD in sociology and advises the EU on gender equality.'

The Emirates is just over here.

'Liz is also a massive football fan.'

This is an amazing view.

Why do you think so many footballers

get caught up in so many sex scandals?

I don't know whether it's specific to footballers.

I think there's an issue about, erm, men's expectations of sex,

men's sense of entitlement to have sex,

and it's everywhere,

but I think the more power, position

and status that you have in the world as a man,

the more you feel entitled to it.

Do you think some of the girls should take some responsibility as well?

I think we need to be doing sex and relationships education

with all young people about what sexual ethics are.

Would you say that the football clubs kind of...you know,

they kind of... they're happy with this

or they encourage it in a way?

LIZ SIGHS

I don't think they're happy with it

but I think they...they accept

what I would call a version of rape culture in football clubs.

If you think about rape culture as that it's about blaming the victim,

it's about trivialising or denying that sexual violence took place,

or it's about saying it wasn't really that harmful,

that's the kind of stuff they say.

I would even say there's a toxic masculinity in football

and they need to actually address that, they need to think about

what is it to be a male footballer in the 21st century.

Yeah.

Meeting Liz has made me wonder what's being taught at grass-roots level.

So I'm heading to a football academy in South East London

to see for myself.

98% of kids in football academies

fail to become professional footballers.

I'm on my way today to meet Baz.

He's a coach at Fisher Athletic Academy,

and I guess, like many other academies that there are all over England,

they're nurturing young kids to kind of be that next footballing star.

Football academies were set up a generation ago

to develop players, so what's gone wrong and what needs to change?

Do you know where I can find Baz?

-Just through there.

-Oh, brilliant.

'I've been told Baz Baker is the guy to talk to -

'he's coached hundreds of young players

'and has also played at a professional level.'

I know you're busy so I won't waste your time.

Hi, Baz, how are you? Nice to meet you.

All right, not too bad, yeah.

'The academy trains 11-to-18-year-olds who all have big ambitions

'to be signed and play football as a career.'

What it's like training a group of under-18s?

You've got to get discipline,

there's got to be a lot of discipline

because, obviously, you've got a lot of testosterone flying around.

Would you say that your players are influenced by other players

-obviously who have made it?

-Oh, yes, yes, yes.

-Cars, money, women?

-Yes, yes, yes.

-How do you think that affects them?

Well, because they want to emulate that, they want that,

because their goal is... they look at the top end of football

and they see the footballers earning loads of money, driving fast cars,

and these guys want to get there.

I'm trying to understand why footballers hit headlines

for the wrong reasons.

I say you're giving a load of money to uneducated players

and that's a horrible thing to say but that's basically what they do.

You pay someone 16, 17, 18, 19 a lot of money, he buys a fast car

and he's getting loads of attention because he's now a commodity.

Go back, come back, come back to Lewis and start again!

Do you think that if they made, like, for example, a law

where footballers had to study until the age of 21

and then they could earn that, do you think that things would change maybe?

BAZ CHUCKLES

That would be good, it's meant to be that way.

When the academy started 20-odd years ago,

they were meant to take kids

and nurture 'em all the way through from a young age,

all the way till they get to the first team, but that's been lost.

How do you stop them getting themselves into this type of trouble?

I think a little bit more leadership from the FA into the clubs,

rather than let the clubs deal with it themselves,

but there's no leadership to say, "If you cross this line,"

or, "If you breach this contract in this area,

"this is what's going to happen," so they don't, so nothing happens.

'Boys can be given multimillion pound contracts from as young as 17.'

Is football the ultimate goal for a lot of you and your friends?

-Yeah.

-Yeah, definitely.

My whole crowd who I chill with want to become a footballer

so, like, when I'm in that crowd, I want to follow them, do you know what I mean?

Growing up from young, you want to become a footballer...

I'm only seeing football. Like, when I was in year 6,

I was thinking I'm going to be a footballer,

I don't have nothing else to back me up, do you know what I mean?

Education is just a no for me, to be honest.

They go from being in an academy to being signed within a day and night

and then, obviously, it's for coaches, agents, FA,

everyone wants them, everyone wants these kids

cos they are commodities and they make millions.

There's only so much that a guy like Baz can do, you know,

he's a coach for an academy

but what actually happens when these guys go into the next level

and the next stage?

Who actually guides them at that point? Who helps them out?

Finally, after a lot of phone calls and e-mails,

I have the opportunity to meet someone at the top of the game.

The Professional Footballers' Association

is one of the richest unions in the world.

It's set up to look after the rights of players

but it's also there to educate them.

I've arranged to meet the Deputy Chief Executive, Bobby Barnes,

to find out what he's doing not only to help the players

but also to challenge their behaviour.

Do you think that footballers now are earning too much money

-for their own good?

-As an industry,

football is probably generating more money than it ever has

or probably even dreamed of.

Now, with the best will in the world,

the reasons for that money coming into the game

is because of the players, so I think it's only right

that players should get a fair share of that income.

So my question to you is really what do the PFA have in place

in order to help these young players stay in the right track?

It's important that we show young players that,

although they don't ask to be role models,

whether they like it or not, that position is thrust upon them.

I think it's important for us to provide some education

and to help those players to be rehabilitated

so they can come back and be useful citizens again

in the field that they're actually in.

We probably spend in excess of £12 million a year on education.

Have you noticed a change in the type of education

that you have to offer players?

Very much so. I think, certainly a few years ago,

it would have been very much focused purely on vocational training

and preparing people for a life after football,

that was pretty much the core.

As the world has changed, obviously, we have a responsibility

and it's important that what we actually offer

reflects changes in society and changes in the way our members

are perceived, so it's very important that we provide our members

with the tools as best we can to equip them to deal with

the challenges that they're going to have to face

in an ever-changing world,

and one that they're basically going to be exposed to scrutiny

more than ever before.

Do you think that footballers need to be challenged on how they view women?

We can't pretend that we've got the silver bullet

that's the answer to this, but what we can say is

that we're aware that if there is an issue that needs to be addressed,

we need to speak and work with the appropriate bodies that can help us

to help our members.

So far, the PFA have only committed to producing an educational video

that aims to tackle footballers' attitude towards consent.

They plan to distribute it to all major clubs.

After interviewing Bobby,

I know that the PFA do things in order to help footballers.

Now, I'm not sure how effective these things are

cos, right now, if I'm honest with you,

it seems like they don't actually do as much as they could do.

Bobby Barnes said that players are role models,

so what do young footballers think

about having that responsibility thrust upon them?

I've come to Peckham in South London

to meet a young player called Danny Haynes.

Danny plays for Ebbsfleet Utd,

but he also played for Ipswich, Bristol City, Charlton,

Barnsley and Notts County.

Although he's not in the top flight of the game,

I want to find out what it's like

when a young man starts off as a professional.

Peckham is quite a well-known area for quite iconic footballers.

Who else do you know that's been brought up around here?

-The two obvious is Anton Ferdinand and Rio.

-OK.

-And then you got one that plays for Middlesbrough, Cario.

-OK.

I seen him not too long ago driving through.

Why do you think a lot of footballers

come from a similar background?

It's a way out and, obviously, people love football,

it's England's biggest sport, so everyone does football.

Do footballers have to let off steam?

Obviously, it's an intense environment, you know, so...

They do have to let off steam but they got to be careful

when they do do it because the media will just jump all over it.

For me, it's hard, like, I have five brothers and sisters

and they're all younger, and their role models, like you, Rio,

all these people who are earning a lot of money,

but, you know, there are young ones who they also look up to

who are earning the same amount of money

but they're going absolutely... hitting headlines, doing this, doing that.

It's hard. At the age of 18,

you're expecting a child to be a role model to another child.

He hasn't really grown up yet so how can you put pressure on him

to say he's a role model because he earns this amount of money,

because he's good at a talent?

I think it's bizarre.

How do you think that that should be stopped? Cos...

I don't know how you control that or monitor it in any way.

I don't think you can control it, it's out of our hands.

The money is there in football for footballers and it's enticing young boys

to grow up wanting to do football so I don't think you can stop that.

Anyone coming from round here and you get that offer on the table,

you're going to snap it up with both hands.

As a 17-year-old, how much were you earning?

At 17, I was on like... £1,800 a week.

Would you say you had to learn the hard way

and quite young, which is quite a shock?

Yeah, I've had to learn the hard way

because...moving to a whole different city with whole different people,

you don't have your family around,

you have to learn the hard way, and I made plenty of mistakes.

Cos, remember, footballers are going in at the age of 18, 19

and earning big money, and with money,

loads of things come with it.

Do you find it hard to maintain focus,

because obviously you have women throwing themselves at you?

It depends if you go out or not.

If you go out quite a bit and you're known for going out

and people obviously know you're a footballer,

you're going to get women throwing themselves at you

because they feel like it's a meal ticket.

Is it easy to trust women now?

No, it's not easy to trust women now.

I've got my partner now so I'm very settled

and I've got my children, so that's...

anything I do now is just for them.

I think I have a better understanding

as to why footballers hit headlines for the wrong reasons.

I think I know more of why, for example, someone like my dad

would've done something like that to my mum.

Maybe it's not on purpose.

I'm understanding things more.

It feels like I've come to the end of my journey

but there's one more chat I need to have before I finish.

I'm back in Madrid and on my way to see my mum.

I think my mum and dad actually fell in love when they were 16, 17.

My mum was playing basketball for a team in Norwich University

and my dad was also playing football.

My mum's gone through a lot

and I think she's a really strong individual

and, as a woman, she's shown me everything that I am.

My mum and dad broke up when I was two years old.

My dad has re-married twice but my mum has always remained single.

I want to ask her if she blames football culture for their divorce.

-Hola, Madre, how are you?

-Hola.

-OK.

-How are you?

-All right.

-How have you been?

-Very good, how have you been?

Busy, working hard, as always.

-IN SPANISH ACCENT: I've been working hard too.

-Have you?

-Yes, come, let me show you.

-What you been doing, then?

A lot of things, Madre.

Do you know Dwight Yorke?

His face is familiar but...

He has been in the press, known for, you know,

a lot of sexual activity with women...

Oh, that is unusual in footballers(!)

Oh, it's unusual?

Very unusual.

AMAL LAUGHS Yeah.

I've been speaking to a lot of people basically

to make this documentary and I think that I've realised a set of things -

football, it seems that women and sex are always attached to it.

From your experience, who do we blame, or what is it to blame?

Is it the money, the managers, the agents, the girls?

The fact that they are footballers? Is it football itself? What is it?

It's to do with education,

it's to do with being very young, famous and rich

and not have the head in the right place

to put everything together and handle everything.

All these girls, they're throwing themselves to them.

I mean, I've been with your dad to a nightclub after the game.

Girls, they will not see me, I was not there.

The first thing they will do is give him a kiss, hug him

if they can, and hold his hand and pass him a little paper

and I would say, "John, can I see the paper?"

And it was "my name is Lucy

"and my telephone number, please call me."

Yeah, so women have no self-respect.

Exactly, but...I will not blame them.

It's 50/50.

If someone throw themselves to them, they will go for it.

So it's just basically men in general.

Of course.

Do you think it's hard to have a relationship with a football player?

For me, at the time, when I met your dad, we were very young.

Your dad was 18, I was 18.

I trusted him, he trusted me.

I was in love with him, I felt that he loved me as well,

and what I really wanted was to have a family, happy family,

have babies, and he was agreeing with me at the time,

I mean, he was happy with that.

But then that's even worse,

because then when you do find out that he's cheated...

Obviously I was so naive, because I was going this way

and he was going another way.

So how did you find out?

I find out when someone called me

-and said, "Oh, have you seen the newspaper?"

-Yeah.

And I said, "No, I haven't seen it."

Then they send me the newspaper

and I remember you were...two years old.

I drove you to my girlfriend's house

that she had the newspaper and I could not stop crying.

You were in the back of the car saying, "Mum, what's wrong with you?"

And I could not stop crying because at that point...

all my...

all that I believed, all that I worked for, my heart was broken.

As a child you get to know things

but you can never actually understand them that well.

Today, I found out how much pain she actually did go through.

It just makes me really sad and it pains me that there are

footballers out there still in the same type of frame of mind.

There's a very close link, it seems, to football and sex, you know.

If you are a footballer,

it almost seems these days that you are entitled to do certain things

that, realistically, you shouldn't be doing.

We're giving young men,

and most of the time uneducated young men,

a lot of money and a lot of power

and they just clearly can't handle it.

MUSIC: Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones