21-year-old soccer player to spend more than a month in custody over attempted rape charge at his native Scotland, and now the incident is making headlines
It was a Wednesday night in Glasgow.
Evan Olango, 20, was enjoying an early night with friends when he began to feel uncomfortable.
The football player had been getting ready for a match that would see him face off with rivals Celtic, who were holding him responsible for the ‘insult to Scotland’ he faced at his hometown of Dundee.
But the game wasn’t due to start for at least several hours – and the feeling grew worse as he put on his uniform and put on his football boots.
A man who answered the door to the 19-year-old told him he should leave. “Why are you even here?” he shouted.
Olango, who is also black, says he was “shocked and taken aback” by the man’s rudeness and asked for “just a minute.”
“I couldn’t leave the house and my mates were waiting for me outside.”
The footballer’s friend grabbed his phone and the two men ended up having a tense conversation about the man’s behaviour.
The friend told Olango’s friend: “We have a problem with this guy.”
“I wasn’t sure at the time so I took a screenshot of the conversation and showed it to my mum,” Olango says. ”She was angry with the guy.”
The pair decided to tell their mothers.
The first text message went out at 5.30pm on November 2 from the first of two cellphones in the house.
The two mothers, who have remained anonymous out of respect for their son’s privacy, were told “The guy you’re talking about is the lad from Dundee who’s been hounding him … We’re calling Scotland.”
A minute later, they heard a phone being taken away.
“I thought the phone would be taken to police,” Olango says, “but I was actually taken to a police station in Dundee.”
He says the police questioned him about the incident and then referred him to a youth officer.