Morality in football: should Manchester United bring back Mason Greenwood?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 14 August 2023
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mason Greenwood was one of the most exciting talents in world football two years ago. A superstar in the making.
But in January 2022, a social media video surfaced of Greenwood - he was arrested on suspicion of rape, coercive behaviour and assault - suspended by United, and he's not played since.
But, charges were dropped earlier this year and the club now have a decision to make. Should Greenwood play for their club again? Or should they take a moral stand? We talk to The Athletic's Adam Crafton, and Em, who's protesting at tonight's Premier League opener.
And we look at the government ditching cancer screening targets. Is this a good idea if they're constantly being missed... or does this just mean that more people will not be seen before it's too late? We speak to former Health Secretary Stephen Dorrell.
Editor: Tom Hughes
Senior Producer: Gabriel Radus
Producer: Laura FitzPatrick
Social Media Editor: Georgia Foxwell
Planning Producer: Alex Barnett
Video Producer: Rory Symon
The News Agents is a Global Player Original and a Persephonica Production.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:08.9 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:13.2 | Mason Greenwood, his first goal for Manchester United, and hopefully the first of many. |
| 0:21.3 | 17, world at his feet. |
| 0:24.1 | Mason Greenwood has been charged with attempted rape, |
| 0:26.9 | engaging in controlling and coercive behaviour and assaults occasioning actual bodily harm. |
| 0:32.2 | The club moved quickly to suspend him after multiple allegations were published on an Instagram account. |
| 0:38.8 | Mason Greenwood, the Manchester United Stryker, has had charges of attempted rape and assault |
| 0:44.2 | dropped. This is more than a year after he was originally arrested. |
| 0:49.6 | We're going to talk on this podcast about football, except we're not really talking about football. I guess we're |
| 0:55.4 | talking about morality, proper behaviour, whether highly paid sports professionals are on a pedestal |
| 1:02.5 | and should be held to a different moral level than other people in our society, or whether you just let your football do the talking and don't give a |
| 1:13.7 | damn about the background, the behaviour of those highly paid professionals. In a nutshell, |
| 1:21.4 | that's a decision that Manchester United have to take as they prepare to kick off their season this evening at Old |
| 1:29.2 | Trafford. Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:35.0 | The Newsagents. |
| 1:37.0 | It's John and no Emily and no Lewis who's recovering from his wedding on Saturday. |
| 1:43.8 | I might say a little bit more about that |
| 1:45.8 | at the end of the podcast. But we'll start today with Manchester United, with football, with allegations |
| 1:54.0 | of rape, with what is acceptable behaviour and what is not. Because the case of Mason Greenwood is complicated. He faced |
| 2:04.3 | charges. Those charges were then dropped after a key witness said she was not going to give evidence. |
| 2:10.4 | It's all out there on social media. But frankly, we've taken the view that it is all too |
... |
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