Gordon Taylor apologised for comparing convicted rapist Ched Evans trying to clear his name to the fight for justice for 96 Liverpool fans killed in the Hillsborough stadium disaster.

Calls for Taylor to resign as chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association followed immediately after he gave an interview on Thursday night saying: “He would not be the first person or persons to have been found guilty and maintained their innocence and then been proved right.

“If we are talking about things in football, we know what happened, what was alleged to have happened at Hillsborough. And it’s now unravelling and we are finding it was very different to how it was portrayed at the time — indeed by the police at the time.”