Rape already carries a maximum penalty of "Life", Gromit.
If I were an employer (which, thankfully I am not) there is no way I would have a convicted rapist working for me. Anyone committing that crime obviously has a serious personality disorder and I would not take the risk that the disorder might manifest itself again amongst people in my business.
People who "do the crime and serve the time" must realise that, certainly in the case of serious crimes, their actions are likely to have an impact on them for the rest of their lives. They cannot expect to serve a lengthy spell in the chokey and emerge to simply pick up where they left off. It's one of the things they should think about before embarking on crime. Interestingly the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act does not provide protection for those sentenced to custody for a period of more than four years so Mr Evans (who was sentenced to five years) will have to declare his conviction - if asked - for the rest of his life.
There is also his victim to consider. Hopefully she has better sense than to watch a football match in which he may be involved but it cannot do her much good to see her assailant prancing around a football pitch just 30 months after his conviction.
Of course the complication here is that the employer is a professional football club. As any fool knows, "planet football" is a few light years adrift from planet earth and the usual rules in many respects do not seem to apply.