WILL we ever see Adam Johnson on a football pitch again? I hope not. But I wouldn’t put money on it. There is always one club desperate enough that they’d sign a criminal, regardless of what they’d done and the public’s wrath.

Ched Evans was nearly signed last year despite spending years behind bars for rape. Lee Hughes was sentenced to six years in jail for causing death by dangerous driving. Released after just three, he was snapped up by Oldham and later played for Notts County and Port Vale. Marlon King was sacked by Wigan in 2009 after he was convicted of sexual assault and ABH. He was jailed for 18 months and placed on the sex offenders register after he groped a young woman in a nightclub and broke her nose when she rebuffed his advances. Yet Birmingham felt the need to sign him when he was released.

A few years later, King caused a pile-up on the A46 when he crashed while eating ice cream behind the wheel of his Porsche. The three-car smash put one man in hospital for weeks and King was jailed again.

There’s a worrying tendency to bring back such destructive men, and I’ve already spoken to people who think he should be allowed back as he admitted two of the four charges. The 28-year-old has admitted one count of sexual activity with a girl under 16 and a further count of grooming. He denies two other counts of sexual activity with a child. Some have even claimed that he should be allowed to play because he was not in the wrong, somehow being tricked by the 15-year-old schoolgirl.

The text messages read out in court have Johnson explicitly asking the girl what school year she was in. “He knew when my birthday was,” the girl said in court. “He knew when I was going to turn 16 and he asked what year I was in at school. I told him I was in Year 10.”

This isn’t a case of mistaken identity or some kind of mix-up. The exSunderland player knew exactly what he was doing during the months they were talking, building up trust with the young girl only to take full advantage of her. Arguments for this man to be let back into football are even more confounding than for rapist Evans.

Johnson used his role to prey on a child. She asked for a signed shirt. He said: “You owe me. I thought I would have got a thank you kiss for the shirt.” What he put that girl through is sickening. He forced her to perform a sex act on him and when she didn’t want to, the girl told the court it happened “because he sort of put his hand on my back, not forcing but gradually pushing forward a bit.”

She tried to stop. “He put my hand on his penis in his trousers if that makes sense. I said: ‘Don’t you have to go?’ and he said: ‘No, I will be all right.’ It was getting slightly awkward.”

People want this predator back on a pitch? There is no place in any sport for the likes of Johnson. When the story first broke, I said that the club should place him on gardening leave until after the trial. They suspended him for a few weeks but placed him back in the team when the dates for the trial were pushed back.

Yes, all people are innocent until proven guilty. But the severity of the allegations merit careful handling. And, in all likelihood, if Johnson was a nobody the club would have cancelled his contract.

But he was a former England international and Sunderland needed wins. He was still in the squad during the preliminary hearings — scoring against Liverpool in the 2-2 draw last week. That the club took 24 hours before releasing him makes it seem as if there was a discussion about whether or not to dump him. The moment he pleaded guilty to those two charges, Sunderland should have shredded his contract. Even Adidas cut him loose before the Black Cats.

One can only assume that Johnson lied to the club from the moment the charge was brought up. That he told Sunderland he was innocent and they found out he was guilty with the rest of the world. Regardless of what happens in the trial on the remaining charges, Johnson’s time as a professional footballer should be over.