South Sydney forward George Burgess has been charged with two counts of willful damage to property after allegedly smashing a car window in Cairns in the early hours of Monday morning.
Burgess has been stood down by the Rabbitohs and the NRL Integrity Unit will be handed all of the details of the incident ahead of what you would suspect is a possible fine and further suspension by the NRL.
Now, lets be clear here, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. George Burgess will have his date in court on the 10th of July. The problem is, as more and more players get involved in alleged incidents, the benefit of the doubt that the public and sponsors may have given the game starts to fade away.
If tomorrow someone walks up to a player and king hits them, a random crazy stranger, that player is going to be hard pressed to get any sympathy for the general public. You’ll always have a small percentage of idiots that always take the side of their favorite players no matter what, but in the real world once an incident comes out, people are just going to think that Rugby League players are trouble making arseholes!
While George Burgess is allegedly roaming the streets of Cairns smashing cars up, I think of a player like Robbie Farah who is nothing short of a credit to the sport. Robbie Farah is an intelligent bloke who would have been successful in life even if he didn’t have the ability to play Rugby League. A player like Robbie Farah gets tarred with the same brush when some fucking moron decides to get so pissed that they can’t control their stupidity.
On the back of the whole Blake Ferguson affair, and now with George Burgess allegedly acting like a complete dope, how much the majority of well behaved Rugby League players feel? It must be frustrating for these guys to be working hard to promote the game and know that it takes a couple of idiots to ruin a whole lot of good work.
I’m not one of these people that buy into the idea that every bad incident see’s parents drag their kids out of Rugby League teams and force them to watch a play other sports. That is an idea dreamed up in Newspapers to promote panic and generate news upon news. These incidents do impact the games image though, and that has an effect on sponsorship. It also gives ammunition to people that don’t like Rugby League and allows them to throw stones at the game.
NRL CEO David Smith must be shaking his head that he has had to deal with two very serious allegations against players in the last 48 hours. I’m confident in his ability though to handle these situations decisively.
I really feel sorry for Sam Burgess. Sam has been a credit to himself and his family since arriving in Australia. Sam will have to deal with his own brothers stupidity, and that is unfortunate.
As a Rugby League fan I am sick of a the minority of idiots hurting the sport that I love. Whether it is players getting themselves in trouble or people at games abusing players and throwing things at them, as a sport we need to have zero tolerance for these idiots. They are holding the game back. They are making it difficult for the sport to prosper and because what we all know it can be.
The NRL Integrity Unit has been busy lately. Lets hope they do everything possible to stamp out poor behaviour in Rugby League, on and off the field.
As for George Burgess….if he wants to act like that he can fuck off back to Dewsbury!
“NRL Integrity Unit” ,protecting the imge of a multi million $ business pushing alcohol and gambling products, how positively hypocritical. RL in the UK never reaching schools, well not in a way that counts nationally or even regionally doesn’t react with such Victorian moral indignation over triviality. Having said that this story is now leading the small RL section in some British newspapers known for showing RL in the poorest light possible.
The NRL has now decided against having a major gambling partner which TBH….I think is a bit of a convenient stance to take after their deal with Tom Waterhouse broke down. The alcohol sponsorship is in full swing though.
The NRL is a huge business now and its hard to turn down the tens of millions of dollars these companies are offering the game. There is no way the sport is going to turn its back on that sort of money from companies that are trading in legal products, but the NRL Integrity Unit right now is more focused on player behaviour than anything else.
It is a fine line, but its real life. Nothing is black and white. I see you point though and its a good one. However until the government bans advertising for these type of products, the game will keep taking the money.
I don’t think its too much to ask for professional athletes to behave themselves though, no matter whose logo is on their jersey.
Well we could do with some sponsorship cash. Some of the big names seen on the jerseys of the NRL teams. The Super League as usual the most viewed and well attended club rugby competition in the British Isles without a sponsor for the competition or for the WC either.