David Goodwillie has seen a move to Australia collapse after the club he was set to join performed a transfer u-turn after a furious backlash from fans.
The former Dundee United, Blackburn and Aberdeen striker was convicted of rape by a civil court in 2017. Goodwillie, who was club captain at Clyde, controversially signed for Raith Rovers in January last year. However, the Fife club were forced into a climb down after staff quit the club and fans vowed to stay away as a result of the signing. Goodwillie never made an appearance for Rovers and they reached an agreement to end his contract two months later.
Now Sorrento FC have backtracked on their plans to add the former Scotland international to their squad. The semi-pro club, based in Western Australia, are managed by former St Mirren and Motherwell favourite Steven McGarry and were set to sign Goodwillie and announced it on their Facebook page. But they've now done a 180 after it became clear that his arrival would not go down well.
Football West released a statement that read: “After discussions with the club, it is noted that Sorrento FC have since confirmed that they will not be continuing with the signing,”
Goodwillie was forced to leave Northern Premier League outfit Radcliffe FC after less than 24 hours after his debut earlier this year. The greater Manchester club didn’t formally announce Goodwillie had joined, but after he netted a hat-trick on his first appearance, the Bury-based outfit
Their statement read: "We can confirm that David Goodwillie has left the Club.
"As a Club we have always been about second chances and have been a part of many players and staff members rehabilitation along that journey, we've always given people a chance to improve their life and found support in this endeavour.
"When the Club were presented with David Goodwillie that same logic was applied, but in this case it's clear that was a significant misstep and our due diligence should have been of a much higher standard.
"We can vouch for all the people at the Club involved in this signing did so out of the desire to do a good thing for an individual with an admittedly tainted past as we have done so successfully before but this was a bridge too far.
"This move came about very quickly, with clearance only granted extremely late leaving us in a position where our media volunteers were unable to release details prior to team sheets being produced - while regrettable this was also unavoidable."
