I’m not sure it’s actually that different in a legal sense. What is massively different is that players are not just employees, they’re tradable commodities meaning generally a football club is better off selling they player than sacking them as they can recoup a fee.
Ultimately it depends what he actually did. But footballers are not immune from being sacked, Chelsea did it with Adrian Mutu - he was sacked and the club successfully sued him for the transfer fee they paid out. That was drugs related so probably very different circumstances, but it’s a precedent nonetheless.