Drugs, sex, domestic violence: football’s cover-up

Article in the comments somewhere below.


https://twitter.com/r_nrl/status/1314949368525590529?s=21

That's disgusting. Not the fact you posted it mate, thank you, but the behaviour that people have to accept as normal.

After reading that article, and knowing that all clubs are probably realistically like that, I feel sickened. I sit here in my WT jersey and feel ashamed.

I hope my daughters never ever met a footballer in person. Imagine being subjected to living like that. It'd be like married to the mob.

Wow, that is hideous.


Low low acts from low people

I don't however get that whole "...I feel ashamed" as I sit in my Tigers jersey

Did you do something?

I didn't and I don't feel ashamed over scum acts by low iq idiots who I have nothing to do with personally.

I feel disgust for their actions, pity for the recipients and anger towards the idiots who perpetrated but I personally am not "ashamed" nor should the average NRL punter

The players involved should feel ashamed, very ashamed (but they won't) - I however will not - my level of shame is based on my own actions and of those of my family/friends etc.

I think it's also the hero worship imposed on these players.

I grew up idolising players. I still admire them for their ability to play at the supreme levels of the game but that's where it stops now. It's easy to take it personally if you're heavily invested in the player, like they are doing the wrong thing by you personally as well.

I suppose like some have said, if you're raising your kids to look up to sports stars, you're probably doing it wrong.

Absolutely
I have two youngsters (well not so young now, 22) and I have always taught them personal responsibility and the right way, as I see it, to support sports stars - admire them for the on field abilities and that's that.
Just because someone can play footy or spin a cricket ball does not mean they are the types of people worth emulating in your private life other than for their sporting abilities - the two should never mix unless off field activities have been proven to be of the same level as on field activities. But hey im old fashioned like that.
 
Article in the comments somewhere below.


https://twitter.com/r_nrl/status/1314949368525590529?s=21

That's disgusting. Not the fact you posted it mate, thank you, but the behaviour that people have to accept as normal.

After reading that article, and knowing that all clubs are probably realistically like that, I feel sickened. I sit here in my WT jersey and feel ashamed.

I hope my daughters never ever met a footballer in person. Imagine being subjected to living like that. It'd be like married to the mob.

Wow, that is hideous.

not being on twitter....what does it say??
 
Article in the comments somewhere below.


https://twitter.com/r_nrl/status/1314949368525590529?s=21

That's disgusting. Not the fact you posted it mate, thank you, but the behaviour that people have to accept as normal.

After reading that article, and knowing that all clubs are probably realistically like that, I feel sickened. I sit here in my WT jersey and feel ashamed.

I hope my daughters never ever met a footballer in person. Imagine being subjected to living like that. It'd be like married to the mob.

Wow, that is hideous.

not being on twitter....what does it say??

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/queensland/wag-reveals-jawdropping-truth-of-being-married-to-nrl-star/news-story/01b305e9d24f9b3591d4f1adf0d69ca2

"The former wife of a rugby league champion – who played State of Origin and represented Australia – has given an astonishing insight of how she married into a web of cheating, drug use and cover-ups. The woman, who is attempting to move on with her life, has spoken out on the condition of anonymity.

Deja-vu. That was my reaction when I read the recent allegations about married rugby league players.

While it’s shocking for outsiders, it is not surprising for anyone who has been married to an elite NRL player.

Close your eyes and it could be any of us – with any top tier marquee player.

So many of us have experienced a version of the story over and over again. We’ve had club officials sitting in our kitchens, witnessing these cataclysmic meltdowns and then when it’s wrapped up and they’ve kept it out of the press.

You’re left standing there. From the top down, everyone is complicit.

While you would think it would be common with the younger up and coming players, it is far more common in big name players that are married or have kids.

These are the players promoted as the wholesome stars in these family-friendly clubs, but the reality is they are monsters. I can’t stress enough how complicit everyone is.

Everyone knows what’s happening but no one says anything – to your face.
Everyone knows what’s happening but no one says anything – to your face.
BETRAYAL IN A PILL
The worst example I’m aware of where the club prioritises player welfare over the wellbeing of wives is when a club doctor treats a player who has contracted a STD from cheating. A club doctor supplies anti-chlamydia medication for the player and the player’s wife – without her knowledge. It is given to her as a vitamin supplement to treat the STD she didn’t know she had. I know of this happening at two big clubs and an Origin camp. I’m pretty certain it has happened to me too.

THE CHEATING
I’ve seen a second hotel room at Origin camp for a player’s prostitutes, while his wife is in the other hotel room nearby.

The officials organised that second room knowingly.

I’ve been at work and checked social media and seen pictures of a cheerleader posing in her bikini by my pool, on my wedding towels, wearing my sunglasses.

I’ve woken up when he was overseas on a ‘trip away’ and our iPad was still linked to his phone and I’ve seen all the messages organising hookers.

We had to set a Google alert because people would update his Wikipedia page to say under ‘personal’ that he cheats on his wife.

There is an unwritten rule that no one has your best interest at heart.

The woman says her life was often very lonely.
The woman says her life was often very lonely.
GOLDEN RULE IS ‘SHUT UP’
It is very lonely, even when you’re sitting with all the wives and partners at a game. You know a wife will greet you knowing or having witnessed your partner cheating on you, yet no one says anything.

It is very superficial. It’s always about protecting the image of the club. Player welfare and more importantly wives, partners and their family’s welfare, is secondary to the club. Always.

You are very much expected to put up and shut up. You are an unpopular person in the club community if you blow a whistle on any of these boys.

It is a sad way to live. And then you move on to the next club.

THE OVERDOSE
At every club the doctor is called ‘doc’. The doctor is aware of the players’ pathological abuse of prescription meds.
Drug seeking tendencies and doctor shopping is highly contentious and embarrassing for the club.

So the club doc will prescribe medication to avoid the embarrassment of the players seeking out doctors to get their benzos and Valium, sleeping tablets, Ativan, Xanax.

So the club doctor prescribes them but that is all done to protect the club, none of it is to help the player.

My former husband overdosed overseas on a ‘trip away’. They thought he was dead. He was hospitalised under a fake name.

I had to pick him up from the international airport and was told to take him straight to the club for blood tests from the club doctor to see what drugs could still be in his system.

I’ve seen a player snort an entire gram of coke in one snort.
On a Monday morning in the off-season I’ve seen him take seven ecstasy pills in one go. I just shook my head and left for work and said “I guess I’ll see you in two days then”.

Both prescription and illegal drugs were routinely used and abused.
Both prescription and illegal drugs were routinely used and abused.
VANISHING & COVER-UPS
Disappearing for days is common. You get used to it. Missing for two days is normal. Three days is when you get worried and club officials get involved.

I would go to hospitals and police stations. When you call police and ask if they’ve arrested your husband and they say “no yet, darling”. It is so humiliating.

Once, we drove in separate cars to dinner at the club and we only lived nearby. When we go to leave, he texts me and says he’s in the car behind me and he’ll see me at home. He was sober. That was 9pm. I go home, watch Foxtel and suddenly it’s midnight and he’s not answering his phone. I thought he had been carjacked or was in an accident. I call the players he’s usually with, they haven’t seen him. I go back to the club and the security says he left hours ago.

I called him hundreds of times. I called his manager. I go to every hospital.

It’s 5am on a Saturday and you’re asking emergency nurses if the man in the photo you are holding has been brought in and that he might not know who he is. I can’t describe the look of pity they give you.

The CEO of the club is calling you. His manager is calling you.

And then at midday he gets dropped home by a taxi and he’s off his face. I then get a knock at the door, it’s the taxi driver who has returned and is saying “I wonder how much it’s worth telling you that I picked him up from a brothel, or should I tell the papers”. So then I have to arrange a signed jersey and $1000 in cash for a taxi driver to keep quiet which the club organises. You are always getting people’s phone numbers so the club can organise tickets for them in return for them deleting photos of your husband unconscious in a gutter.

It’s a cancer in the NRL and all clubs are complicit, and all clubs know it goes on. From the strength and conditioning coach upwards. The NRL integrity unit is a joke. It is solely in place to protect the interest of the game.

These players are protected by these businesses who are run to make money. When their value drops through scandal it is not good for the club so their motivation is not to reduce the scandals, it is to reduce the scandals getting out.

And the players are emboldened by the club enabling their behaviour.

No one ever fixes the core problem. They just are very good at covering it up."

Originally published as ‘Secretly drugged to treat NRL star’s secret STD’: WAG bombshell
 
Article in the comments somewhere below.


https://twitter.com/r_nrl/status/1314949368525590529?s=21

That's disgusting. Not the fact you posted it mate, thank you, but the behaviour that people have to accept as normal.

After reading that article, and knowing that all clubs are probably realistically like that, I feel sickened. I sit here in my WT jersey and feel ashamed.

I hope my daughters never ever met a footballer in person. Imagine being subjected to living like that. It'd be like married to the mob.

Wow, that is hideous.


Low low acts from low people

I don't however get that whole "...I feel ashamed" as I sit in my Tigers jersey

Did you do something?

I didn't and I don't feel ashamed over scum acts by low iq idiots who I have nothing to do with personally.

I feel disgust for their actions, pity for the recipients and anger towards the idiots who perpetrated but I personally am not "ashamed" nor should the average NRL punter

The players involved should feel ashamed, very ashamed (but they won't) - I however will not - my level of shame is based on my own actions and of those of my family/friends etc.

I think it's also the hero worship imposed on these players.

I grew up idolising players. I still admire them for their ability to play at the supreme levels of the game but that's where it stops now. It's easy to take it personally if you're heavily invested in the player, like they are doing the wrong thing by you personally as well.

I suppose like some have said, if you're raising your kids to look up to sports stars, you're probably doing it wrong.

Absolutely
I have two youngsters (well not so young now, 22) and I have always taught them personal responsibility and the right way, as I see it, to support sports stars - admire them for the on field abilities and that's that.
Just because someone can play footy or spin a cricket ball does not mean they are the types of people worth emulating in your private life other than for their sporting abilities - the two should never mix unless off field activities have been proven to be of the same level as on field activities. But hey im old fashioned like that.

I mean I felt ashamed, as I understand this sort of thing happens in Rugby League as it probably does in most sports, but the way I read this article it paints the picture that this is the norm other than what I thought as the exception.

The idea that this sort of behaviour may occur within Wests Tigers made me feel sick - I don't 'hero worship' the boys, but I do identify with the Wests Tigers brand. The thought of our club (possibly) doing things like this made me consider why I my let my mood and emotions go up and down with the WT.

As per usual, I have an abundance of questions, but not many answers, except to say I'm not sure I could ever walk away from the WT even if I wanted to. And I don't think I necessarily understand why.
 
Sounds like stuff like this is pretty systemic.....

Friend of mine has been a victim of a high profile footy personality leaving a voicemail call suggesting some extremely disgraceful things ( I heard the message)....you just shake your head at what goes on, and how invincible these guys think they are....
 
Sounds like stuff like this is pretty systemic.....

Friend of mine has been a victim of a high profile footy personality leaving a voicemail call suggesting some extremely disgraceful things ( I heard the message)....you just shake your head at what goes on, and how invincible these guys think they are....

Where I live, there is this guy who plays professional rugby union. He gave his partner an STI from all the cheating he'd done. He was well known to cheat on her. Even people who didn't know them well knew who he was and how much he cheated. She would always take him back. They had a kid together. I'm sure there will be more cheating on the way for that couple.

This stuff is definitely systemic and is rife amongst all levels of sport, in lots of sports. Heard some interesting stories about women cricketers too, so it's not only exclusive to men.
 
Sounds like stuff like this is pretty systemic.....

Friend of mine has been a victim of a high profile footy personality leaving a voicemail call suggesting some extremely disgraceful things ( I heard the message)....you just shake your head at what goes on, and how invincible these guys think they are....

Where I live, there is this guy who plays professional rugby union. He gave his partner an STI from all the cheating he'd done. He was well known to cheat on her. Even people who didn't know them well knew who he was and how much he cheated. She would always take him back. They had a kid together. I'm sure there will be more cheating on the way for that couple.

This stuff is definitely systemic and is rife amongst all levels of sport, in lots of sports. Heard some interesting stories about women cricketers too, so it's not only exclusive to men.

I know non sports people that have done exactly this
 
I had a cousin go to a Knights Party about 8-10 years ago and their captain was walking around Nude at the party high on Coke... just ordinary! The culture of RL is very ordinary indeed
 
Sounds like stuff like this is pretty systemic.....

Friend of mine has been a victim of a high profile footy personality leaving a voicemail call suggesting some extremely disgraceful things ( I heard the message)....you just shake your head at what goes on, and how invincible these guys think they are....

Where I live, there is this guy who plays professional rugby union. He gave his partner an STI from all the cheating he'd done. He was well known to cheat on her. Even people who didn't know them well knew who he was and how much he cheated. She would always take him back. They had a kid together. I'm sure there will be more cheating on the way for that couple.

This stuff is definitely systemic and is rife amongst all levels of sport, in lots of sports. Heard some interesting stories about women cricketers too, so it's not only exclusive to men.

I know non sports people that have done exactly this


people all acting like this is exclusive to footy or sports stars....lol
 
Article in the comments somewhere below.


https://twitter.com/r_nrl/status/1314949368525590529?s=21

That's disgusting. Not the fact you posted it mate, thank you, but the behaviour that people have to accept as normal.

After reading that article, and knowing that all clubs are probably realistically like that, I feel sickened. I sit here in my WT jersey and feel ashamed.

I hope my daughters never ever met a footballer in person. Imagine being subjected to living like that. It'd be like married to the mob.

Wow, that is hideous.


Low low acts from low people

I don't however get that whole "...I feel ashamed" as I sit in my Tigers jersey

Did you do something?

I didn't and I don't feel ashamed over scum acts by low iq idiots who I have nothing to do with personally.

I feel disgust for their actions, pity for the recipients and anger towards the idiots who perpetrated but I personally am not "ashamed" nor should the average NRL punter

The players involved should feel ashamed, very ashamed (but they won't) - I however will not - my level of shame is based on my own actions and of those of my family/friends etc.

Yeah just remember 95% of these blokes are class acts on and off the field ....but some will shock you ....if you'd asked me of the young blokes at the WT's I'd met who was a class act .....Austin and Simona ...they were both so natural dealing with people / supporters
 
Article in the comments somewhere below.


https://twitter.com/r_nrl/status/1314949368525590529?s=21

That's disgusting. Not the fact you posted it mate, thank you, but the behaviour that people have to accept as normal.

After reading that article, and knowing that all clubs are probably realistically like that, I feel sickened. I sit here in my WT jersey and feel ashamed.

I hope my daughters never ever met a footballer in person. Imagine being subjected to living like that. It'd be like married to the mob.

Wow, that is hideous.


Low low acts from low people

I don't however get that whole "...I feel ashamed" as I sit in my Tigers jersey

Did you do something?

I didn't and I don't feel ashamed over scum acts by low iq idiots who I have nothing to do with personally.

I feel disgust for their actions, pity for the recipients and anger towards the idiots who perpetrated but I personally am not "ashamed" nor should the average NRL punter

The players involved should feel ashamed, very ashamed (but they won't) - I however will not - my level of shame is based on my own actions and of those of my family/friends etc.

Yeah just remember 95% of these blokes are class acts on and off the field ....but some will shock you ....if you'd asked me of the young blokes at the WT's I'd met who was a class act .....Austin and Simona ...they were both so natural dealing with people / supporters

Do you still hang with Julian ?
 
Article in the comments somewhere below.


https://twitter.com/r_nrl/status/1314949368525590529?s=21

That's disgusting. Not the fact you posted it mate, thank you, but the behaviour that people have to accept as normal.

After reading that article, and knowing that all clubs are probably realistically like that, I feel sickened. I sit here in my WT jersey and feel ashamed.

I hope my daughters never ever met a footballer in person. Imagine being subjected to living like that. It'd be like married to the mob.

Wow, that is hideous.


Low low acts from low people

I don't however get that whole "...I feel ashamed" as I sit in my Tigers jersey

Did you do something?

I didn't and I don't feel ashamed over scum acts by low iq idiots who I have nothing to do with personally.

I feel disgust for their actions, pity for the recipients and anger towards the idiots who perpetrated but I personally am not "ashamed" nor should the average NRL punter

The players involved should feel ashamed, very ashamed (but they won't) - I however will not - my level of shame is based on my own actions and of those of my family/friends etc.

Yeah just remember 95% of these blokes are class acts on and off the field ....but some will shock you ....if you'd asked me of the young blokes at the WT's I'd met who was a class act .....Austin and Simona ...they were both so natural dealing with people / supporters

Do you still hang with Julian ?

Not since he left the Embassy
 
Article in the comments somewhere below.


https://twitter.com/r_nrl/status/1314949368525590529?s=21

That's disgusting. Not the fact you posted it mate, thank you, but the behaviour that people have to accept as normal.

After reading that article, and knowing that all clubs are probably realistically like that, I feel sickened. I sit here in my WT jersey and feel ashamed.

I hope my daughters never ever met a footballer in person. Imagine being subjected to living like that. It'd be like married to the mob.

Wow, that is hideous.

not being on twitter....what does it say??

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/queensland/wag-reveals-jawdropping-truth-of-being-married-to-nrl-star/news-story/01b305e9d24f9b3591d4f1adf0d69ca2

"The former wife of a rugby league champion – who played State of Origin and represented Australia – has given an astonishing insight of how she married into a web of cheating, drug use and cover-ups. The woman, who is attempting to move on with her life, has spoken out on the condition of anonymity.

Deja-vu. That was my reaction when I read the recent allegations about married rugby league players.

While it’s shocking for outsiders, it is not surprising for anyone who has been married to an elite NRL player.

Close your eyes and it could be any of us – with any top tier marquee player.

So many of us have experienced a version of the story over and over again. We’ve had club officials sitting in our kitchens, witnessing these cataclysmic meltdowns and then when it’s wrapped up and they’ve kept it out of the press.

You’re left standing there. From the top down, everyone is complicit.

While you would think it would be common with the younger up and coming players, it is far more common in big name players that are married or have kids.

These are the players promoted as the wholesome stars in these family-friendly clubs, but the reality is they are monsters. I can’t stress enough how complicit everyone is.

Everyone knows what’s happening but no one says anything – to your face.
Everyone knows what’s happening but no one says anything – to your face.
BETRAYAL IN A PILL
The worst example I’m aware of where the club prioritises player welfare over the wellbeing of wives is when a club doctor treats a player who has contracted a STD from cheating. A club doctor supplies anti-chlamydia medication for the player and the player’s wife – without her knowledge. It is given to her as a vitamin supplement to treat the STD she didn’t know she had. I know of this happening at two big clubs and an Origin camp. I’m pretty certain it has happened to me too.

THE CHEATING
I’ve seen a second hotel room at Origin camp for a player’s prostitutes, while his wife is in the other hotel room nearby.

The officials organised that second room knowingly.

I’ve been at work and checked social media and seen pictures of a cheerleader posing in her bikini by my pool, on my wedding towels, wearing my sunglasses.

I’ve woken up when he was overseas on a ‘trip away’ and our iPad was still linked to his phone and I’ve seen all the messages organising hookers.

We had to set a Google alert because people would update his Wikipedia page to say under ‘personal’ that he cheats on his wife.

There is an unwritten rule that no one has your best interest at heart.

The woman says her life was often very lonely.
The woman says her life was often very lonely.
GOLDEN RULE IS ‘SHUT UP’
It is very lonely, even when you’re sitting with all the wives and partners at a game. You know a wife will greet you knowing or having witnessed your partner cheating on you, yet no one says anything.

It is very superficial. It’s always about protecting the image of the club. Player welfare and more importantly wives, partners and their family’s welfare, is secondary to the club. Always.

You are very much expected to put up and shut up. You are an unpopular person in the club community if you blow a whistle on any of these boys.

It is a sad way to live. And then you move on to the next club.

THE OVERDOSE
At every club the doctor is called ‘doc’. The doctor is aware of the players’ pathological abuse of prescription meds.
Drug seeking tendencies and doctor shopping is highly contentious and embarrassing for the club.

So the club doc will prescribe medication to avoid the embarrassment of the players seeking out doctors to get their benzos and Valium, sleeping tablets, Ativan, Xanax.

So the club doctor prescribes them but that is all done to protect the club, none of it is to help the player.

My former husband overdosed overseas on a ‘trip away’. They thought he was dead. He was hospitalised under a fake name.

I had to pick him up from the international airport and was told to take him straight to the club for blood tests from the club doctor to see what drugs could still be in his system.

I’ve seen a player snort an entire gram of coke in one snort.
On a Monday morning in the off-season I’ve seen him take seven ecstasy pills in one go. I just shook my head and left for work and said “I guess I’ll see you in two days then”.

Both prescription and illegal drugs were routinely used and abused.
Both prescription and illegal drugs were routinely used and abused.
VANISHING & COVER-UPS
Disappearing for days is common. You get used to it. Missing for two days is normal. Three days is when you get worried and club officials get involved.

I would go to hospitals and police stations. When you call police and ask if they’ve arrested your husband and they say “no yet, darling”. It is so humiliating.

Once, we drove in separate cars to dinner at the club and we only lived nearby. When we go to leave, he texts me and says he’s in the car behind me and he’ll see me at home. He was sober. That was 9pm. I go home, watch Foxtel and suddenly it’s midnight and he’s not answering his phone. I thought he had been carjacked or was in an accident. I call the players he’s usually with, they haven’t seen him. I go back to the club and the security says he left hours ago.

I called him hundreds of times. I called his manager. I go to every hospital.

It’s 5am on a Saturday and you’re asking emergency nurses if the man in the photo you are holding has been brought in and that he might not know who he is. I can’t describe the look of pity they give you.

The CEO of the club is calling you. His manager is calling you.

And then at midday he gets dropped home by a taxi and he’s off his face. I then get a knock at the door, it’s the taxi driver who has returned and is saying “I wonder how much it’s worth telling you that I picked him up from a brothel, or should I tell the papers”. So then I have to arrange a signed jersey and $1000 in cash for a taxi driver to keep quiet which the club organises. You are always getting people’s phone numbers so the club can organise tickets for them in return for them deleting photos of your husband unconscious in a gutter.

It’s a cancer in the NRL and all clubs are complicit, and all clubs know it goes on. From the strength and conditioning coach upwards. The NRL integrity unit is a joke. It is solely in place to protect the interest of the game.

These players are protected by these businesses who are run to make money. When their value drops through scandal it is not good for the club so their motivation is not to reduce the scandals, it is to reduce the scandals getting out.

And the players are emboldened by the club enabling their behaviour.

No one ever fixes the core problem. They just are very good at covering it up."

Originally published as ‘Secretly drugged to treat NRL star’s secret STD’: WAG bombshell


A lot of questions about this... I just find it hard to believe players are turning up to hospitals near-death and it not being in the media. The taxi story too... I mean if it's as bad and common this article is suggesting, there would be a lot more leaks? Going around showing people photos of her husband, someone is bound to recognise him and leak it.

Unless it's from a different era. Like, way back.
 
Sounds like stuff like this is pretty systemic.....

Friend of mine has been a victim of a high profile footy personality leaving a voicemail call suggesting some extremely disgraceful things ( I heard the message)....you just shake your head at what goes on, and how invincible these guys think they are....

Where I live, there is this guy who plays professional rugby union. He gave his partner an STI from all the cheating he'd done. He was well known to cheat on her. Even people who didn't know them well knew who he was and how much he cheated. She would always take him back. They had a kid together. I'm sure there will be more cheating on the way for that couple.

This stuff is definitely systemic and is rife amongst all levels of sport, in lots of sports. Heard some interesting stories about women cricketers too, so it's not only exclusive to men.

I know non sports people that have done exactly this


people all acting like this is exclusive to footy or sports stars....lol

Yeah, I've seen a lot of this behaviour as well in my travels. Not to this extent, but stuff like rampant cheating and substance abuse were certainly commonplace.
 
Article in the comments somewhere below.


https://twitter.com/r_nrl/status/1314949368525590529?s=21

That's disgusting. Not the fact you posted it mate, thank you, but the behaviour that people have to accept as normal.

After reading that article, and knowing that all clubs are probably realistically like that, I feel sickened. I sit here in my WT jersey and feel ashamed.

I hope my daughters never ever met a footballer in person. Imagine being subjected to living like that. It'd be like married to the mob.

Wow, that is hideous.

not being on twitter....what does it say??

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/queensland/wag-reveals-jawdropping-truth-of-being-married-to-nrl-star/news-story/01b305e9d24f9b3591d4f1adf0d69ca2

"The former wife of a rugby league champion – who played State of Origin and represented Australia – has given an astonishing insight of how she married into a web of cheating, drug use and cover-ups. The woman, who is attempting to move on with her life, has spoken out on the condition of anonymity.

Deja-vu. That was my reaction when I read the recent allegations about married rugby league players.

While it’s shocking for outsiders, it is not surprising for anyone who has been married to an elite NRL player.

Close your eyes and it could be any of us – with any top tier marquee player.

So many of us have experienced a version of the story over and over again. We’ve had club officials sitting in our kitchens, witnessing these cataclysmic meltdowns and then when it’s wrapped up and they’ve kept it out of the press.

You’re left standing there. From the top down, everyone is complicit.

While you would think it would be common with the younger up and coming players, it is far more common in big name players that are married or have kids.

These are the players promoted as the wholesome stars in these family-friendly clubs, but the reality is they are monsters. I can’t stress enough how complicit everyone is.

Everyone knows what’s happening but no one says anything – to your face.
Everyone knows what’s happening but no one says anything – to your face.
BETRAYAL IN A PILL
The worst example I’m aware of where the club prioritises player welfare over the wellbeing of wives is when a club doctor treats a player who has contracted a STD from cheating. A club doctor supplies anti-chlamydia medication for the player and the player’s wife – without her knowledge. It is given to her as a vitamin supplement to treat the STD she didn’t know she had. I know of this happening at two big clubs and an Origin camp. I’m pretty certain it has happened to me too.

THE CHEATING
I’ve seen a second hotel room at Origin camp for a player’s prostitutes, while his wife is in the other hotel room nearby.

The officials organised that second room knowingly.

I’ve been at work and checked social media and seen pictures of a cheerleader posing in her bikini by my pool, on my wedding towels, wearing my sunglasses.

I’ve woken up when he was overseas on a ‘trip away’ and our iPad was still linked to his phone and I’ve seen all the messages organising hookers.

We had to set a Google alert because people would update his Wikipedia page to say under ‘personal’ that he cheats on his wife.

There is an unwritten rule that no one has your best interest at heart.

The woman says her life was often very lonely.
The woman says her life was often very lonely.
GOLDEN RULE IS ‘SHUT UP’
It is very lonely, even when you’re sitting with all the wives and partners at a game. You know a wife will greet you knowing or having witnessed your partner cheating on you, yet no one says anything.

It is very superficial. It’s always about protecting the image of the club. Player welfare and more importantly wives, partners and their family’s welfare, is secondary to the club. Always.

You are very much expected to put up and shut up. You are an unpopular person in the club community if you blow a whistle on any of these boys.

It is a sad way to live. And then you move on to the next club.

THE OVERDOSE
At every club the doctor is called ‘doc’. The doctor is aware of the players’ pathological abuse of prescription meds.
Drug seeking tendencies and doctor shopping is highly contentious and embarrassing for the club.

So the club doc will prescribe medication to avoid the embarrassment of the players seeking out doctors to get their benzos and Valium, sleeping tablets, Ativan, Xanax.

So the club doctor prescribes them but that is all done to protect the club, none of it is to help the player.

My former husband overdosed overseas on a ‘trip away’. They thought he was dead. He was hospitalised under a fake name.

I had to pick him up from the international airport and was told to take him straight to the club for blood tests from the club doctor to see what drugs could still be in his system.

I’ve seen a player snort an entire gram of coke in one snort.
On a Monday morning in the off-season I’ve seen him take seven ecstasy pills in one go. I just shook my head and left for work and said “I guess I’ll see you in two days then”.

Both prescription and illegal drugs were routinely used and abused.
Both prescription and illegal drugs were routinely used and abused.
VANISHING & COVER-UPS
Disappearing for days is common. You get used to it. Missing for two days is normal. Three days is when you get worried and club officials get involved.

I would go to hospitals and police stations. When you call police and ask if they’ve arrested your husband and they say “no yet, darling”. It is so humiliating.

Once, we drove in separate cars to dinner at the club and we only lived nearby. When we go to leave, he texts me and says he’s in the car behind me and he’ll see me at home. He was sober. That was 9pm. I go home, watch Foxtel and suddenly it’s midnight and he’s not answering his phone. I thought he had been carjacked or was in an accident. I call the players he’s usually with, they haven’t seen him. I go back to the club and the security says he left hours ago.

I called him hundreds of times. I called his manager. I go to every hospital.

It’s 5am on a Saturday and you’re asking emergency nurses if the man in the photo you are holding has been brought in and that he might not know who he is. I can’t describe the look of pity they give you.

The CEO of the club is calling you. His manager is calling you.

And then at midday he gets dropped home by a taxi and he’s off his face. I then get a knock at the door, it’s the taxi driver who has returned and is saying “I wonder how much it’s worth telling you that I picked him up from a brothel, or should I tell the papers”. So then I have to arrange a signed jersey and $1000 in cash for a taxi driver to keep quiet which the club organises. You are always getting people’s phone numbers so the club can organise tickets for them in return for them deleting photos of your husband unconscious in a gutter.

It’s a cancer in the NRL and all clubs are complicit, and all clubs know it goes on. From the strength and conditioning coach upwards. The NRL integrity unit is a joke. It is solely in place to protect the interest of the game.

These players are protected by these businesses who are run to make money. When their value drops through scandal it is not good for the club so their motivation is not to reduce the scandals, it is to reduce the scandals getting out.

And the players are emboldened by the club enabling their behaviour.

No one ever fixes the core problem. They just are very good at covering it up."

Originally published as ‘Secretly drugged to treat NRL star’s secret STD’: WAG bombshell

Thanks for posting. And to think that two players leaving at halftime was a scandal.
 
Article in the comments somewhere below.


https://twitter.com/r_nrl/status/1314949368525590529?s=21

That's disgusting. Not the fact you posted it mate, thank you, but the behaviour that people have to accept as normal.

After reading that article, and knowing that all clubs are probably realistically like that, I feel sickened. I sit here in my WT jersey and feel ashamed.

I hope my daughters never ever met a footballer in person. Imagine being subjected to living like that. It'd be like married to the mob.

Wow, that is hideous.


Low low acts from low people

I don't however get that whole "...I feel ashamed" as I sit in my Tigers jersey

Did you do something?

I didn't and I don't feel ashamed over scum acts by low iq idiots who I have nothing to do with personally.

I feel disgust for their actions, pity for the recipients and anger towards the idiots who perpetrated but I personally am not "ashamed" nor should the average NRL punter

The players involved should feel ashamed, very ashamed (but they won't) - I however will not - my level of shame is based on my own actions and of those of my family/friends etc.

Yeah just remember 95% of these blokes are class acts on and off the field ....but some will shock you ....if you'd asked me of the young blokes at the WT's I'd met who was a class act .....Austin and Simona ...they were both so natural dealing with people / supporters

Nof and Simona got on the train in the same carriage as I in 2016 (why these blokes were catching the train I'll never know). I remember how chill Nof was and friendly as people recognised them. Simona on the other hand was cold and very loudly said that they should move to the bottom carriage as that's where "the sheila's were." Nof sheepishly followed. I remember it well because I thought it was a weird thing to say at 5:30 in the arvo, for a guy in full orange uniform in a semi-packed train, because what you going to do on a train and because I didn't realise people actually said sheila. Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised.
 
I just find it hard to believe players are turning up to hospitals near-death and it not being in the media.

Agreed. It is a little hard to believe.

Do you remember when SBW did a runner from the Dogs. He was recognised by a Customs' official (not difficult I suppose when they check passports) and the press were alerted immediately. It was in the press before he arrived in France.
 
Article in the comments somewhere below.


https://twitter.com/r_nrl/status/1314949368525590529?s=21

That's disgusting. Not the fact you posted it mate, thank you, but the behaviour that people have to accept as normal.

After reading that article, and knowing that all clubs are probably realistically like that, I feel sickened. I sit here in my WT jersey and feel ashamed.

I hope my daughters never ever met a footballer in person. Imagine being subjected to living like that. It'd be like married to the mob.

Wow, that is hideous.

not being on twitter....what does it say??

https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/queensland/wag-reveals-jawdropping-truth-of-being-married-to-nrl-star/news-story/01b305e9d24f9b3591d4f1adf0d69ca2

"The former wife of a rugby league champion – who played State of Origin and represented Australia – has given an astonishing insight of how she married into a web of cheating, drug use and cover-ups. The woman, who is attempting to move on with her life, has spoken out on the condition of anonymity.

Deja-vu. That was my reaction when I read the recent allegations about married rugby league players.

While it’s shocking for outsiders, it is not surprising for anyone who has been married to an elite NRL player.

Close your eyes and it could be any of us – with any top tier marquee player.

So many of us have experienced a version of the story over and over again. We’ve had club officials sitting in our kitchens, witnessing these cataclysmic meltdowns and then when it’s wrapped up and they’ve kept it out of the press.

You’re left standing there. From the top down, everyone is complicit.

While you would think it would be common with the younger up and coming players, it is far more common in big name players that are married or have kids.

These are the players promoted as the wholesome stars in these family-friendly clubs, but the reality is they are monsters. I can’t stress enough how complicit everyone is.

Everyone knows what’s happening but no one says anything – to your face.
Everyone knows what’s happening but no one says anything – to your face.
BETRAYAL IN A PILL
The worst example I’m aware of where the club prioritises player welfare over the wellbeing of wives is when a club doctor treats a player who has contracted a STD from cheating. A club doctor supplies anti-chlamydia medication for the player and the player’s wife – without her knowledge. It is given to her as a vitamin supplement to treat the STD she didn’t know she had. I know of this happening at two big clubs and an Origin camp. I’m pretty certain it has happened to me too.

THE CHEATING
I’ve seen a second hotel room at Origin camp for a player’s prostitutes, while his wife is in the other hotel room nearby.

The officials organised that second room knowingly.

I’ve been at work and checked social media and seen pictures of a cheerleader posing in her bikini by my pool, on my wedding towels, wearing my sunglasses.

I’ve woken up when he was overseas on a ‘trip away’ and our iPad was still linked to his phone and I’ve seen all the messages organising hookers.

We had to set a Google alert because people would update his Wikipedia page to say under ‘personal’ that he cheats on his wife.

There is an unwritten rule that no one has your best interest at heart.

The woman says her life was often very lonely.
The woman says her life was often very lonely.
GOLDEN RULE IS ‘SHUT UP’
It is very lonely, even when you’re sitting with all the wives and partners at a game. You know a wife will greet you knowing or having witnessed your partner cheating on you, yet no one says anything.

It is very superficial. It’s always about protecting the image of the club. Player welfare and more importantly wives, partners and their family’s welfare, is secondary to the club. Always.

You are very much expected to put up and shut up. You are an unpopular person in the club community if you blow a whistle on any of these boys.

It is a sad way to live. And then you move on to the next club.

THE OVERDOSE
At every club the doctor is called ‘doc’. The doctor is aware of the players’ pathological abuse of prescription meds.
Drug seeking tendencies and doctor shopping is highly contentious and embarrassing for the club.

So the club doc will prescribe medication to avoid the embarrassment of the players seeking out doctors to get their benzos and Valium, sleeping tablets, Ativan, Xanax.

So the club doctor prescribes them but that is all done to protect the club, none of it is to help the player.

My former husband overdosed overseas on a ‘trip away’. They thought he was dead. He was hospitalised under a fake name.

I had to pick him up from the international airport and was told to take him straight to the club for blood tests from the club doctor to see what drugs could still be in his system.

I’ve seen a player snort an entire gram of coke in one snort.
On a Monday morning in the off-season I’ve seen him take seven ecstasy pills in one go. I just shook my head and left for work and said “I guess I’ll see you in two days then”.

Both prescription and illegal drugs were routinely used and abused.
Both prescription and illegal drugs were routinely used and abused.
VANISHING & COVER-UPS
Disappearing for days is common. You get used to it. Missing for two days is normal. Three days is when you get worried and club officials get involved.

I would go to hospitals and police stations. When you call police and ask if they’ve arrested your husband and they say “no yet, darling”. It is so humiliating.

Once, we drove in separate cars to dinner at the club and we only lived nearby. When we go to leave, he texts me and says he’s in the car behind me and he’ll see me at home. He was sober. That was 9pm. I go home, watch Foxtel and suddenly it’s midnight and he’s not answering his phone. I thought he had been carjacked or was in an accident. I call the players he’s usually with, they haven’t seen him. I go back to the club and the security says he left hours ago.

I called him hundreds of times. I called his manager. I go to every hospital.

It’s 5am on a Saturday and you’re asking emergency nurses if the man in the photo you are holding has been brought in and that he might not know who he is. I can’t describe the look of pity they give you.

The CEO of the club is calling you. His manager is calling you.

And then at midday he gets dropped home by a taxi and he’s off his face. I then get a knock at the door, it’s the taxi driver who has returned and is saying “I wonder how much it’s worth telling you that I picked him up from a brothel, or should I tell the papers”. So then I have to arrange a signed jersey and $1000 in cash for a taxi driver to keep quiet which the club organises. You are always getting people’s phone numbers so the club can organise tickets for them in return for them deleting photos of your husband unconscious in a gutter.

It’s a cancer in the NRL and all clubs are complicit, and all clubs know it goes on. From the strength and conditioning coach upwards. The NRL integrity unit is a joke. It is solely in place to protect the interest of the game.

These players are protected by these businesses who are run to make money. When their value drops through scandal it is not good for the club so their motivation is not to reduce the scandals, it is to reduce the scandals getting out.

And the players are emboldened by the club enabling their behaviour.

No one ever fixes the core problem. They just are very good at covering it up."

Originally published as ‘Secretly drugged to treat NRL star’s secret STD’: WAG bombshell


A lot of questions about this... I just find it hard to believe players are turning up to hospitals near-death and it not being in the media. The taxi story too... I mean if it's as bad and common this article is suggesting, there would be a lot more leaks? Going around showing people photos of her husband, someone is bound to recognise him and leak it.

Unless it's from a different era. Like, way back.

The timing of this is interesting as it describes similar events that also appeared in the Burgess story. Could be some very nervous officials in clubs if more noise emerges.
 
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