It's not often Sky Sports News provides genuinely compelling television.
Their idea of drama is David Craig standing outside St James' Park surrounded by kids bunking off school, prattling about the imminent arrival of some Sporting Gijon player signed on the strength of a couple of YouTube clips.
But yesterday there was a gripping exchange, when host Rob Wotton gave Marlon King's agent Tony Finnigan the cross-examination of a lifetime following the striker's release from prison.
Wotton's performance veered into sanctimony, as one minute he insisted: "It doesn't matter what I think," then quickly demanded: "What do I tell my eight-year-old son?"
However, it was nice to have some genuinely searching questions for a change. Rare is the SSN interviewee who does not get to say exactly what they want, but Wotton plugged away for 20 long minutes, putting the case that King's extensive criminal past rendered him unfit to play professional football.
How can a man with 14 previous convictions and whose name appears on the sex offenders' register, earn millions of pounds a year and be a hero to kids?
Finnigan was roundly lambasted last autumn when he reacted to King's incarceration by saying: "Let's say he does his time and comes out afterwards. Do you expect him to work for McDonald's?"
But he did much better this time. He may not be a natural orator (ED cringed when he said: "That's a question for the Crown Prosecution Service or whatever you want to call them." No, Tony, the CPS is fine), but he stuck to his guns and steered clear of any crass blunders.
His argument was simple: King has done his time, he has a right to work and he has a right to an agent to find him that work.
And, hard to stomach as it may be, Finnigan is right.
Is he a reformed character? With his reoffending track record, ED doubts it.
Has he really converted to Islam, named himself Abu Hamza and refused to speak to non-Muslims? Sadly not. Witness The Sun's apology last week for reporting as much.
Has he 'earned' another chance? No. But he gets one anyway.
King was jailed for breaking the nose of a girl who rejected his advances. The incident took place in a Soho strip club while King, presposterously, celebrated his wife becoming pregnant with his third child.
He has previously been found guilty of punching, chasing and spitting at women. Marlon King is a nasty, horrible man.
But that does not mean he should be denied the opportunity to return to work. Once criminals have served their punishment, a civilised society gives them another chance. Fourteen chances if necessary. That's just the way it is.
There seems to be an assumption that King's return to work represents a special form of decay unique to football. But scumbags exist in most walks of life.
Ex-cons go back to work all the time, although it's true that binmen and bouncers don't get the same financial rewards as Premier League footballers.
The outrage over King's possible return is a symptom of football's tendency to remove itself from the rest of the world.
Yet it is governed by exactly the same laws as society at large.
If you think King should still be in prison, then your beef is with the British justice system.
And if you don't buy the moral arguments about forgiveness and rehabilitation, it doesn't matter.
To deny King the right to return to work after his release is quite simply illegal.
That's not to say any club is under an obligation to sign him. Many clubs will decide that King, who has a rap sheet longer than Peter Crouch's arm, is a risk not worth taking.
That is entirely their right. Just how great is the upside? After all, he's only Marlon King, not Gerd Mueller.
And, morally bankrupt as it may sound, that is the main obstacle barring King from a return to the Premier League.
Not that he's a violent, misogynist thug, but that he's a bit rubbish.
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