South Sydney Rabbitohs will be forced to pay a $20,000 fine after their appeal against the NRL’s sanctions was denied.
The sanctions were imposed for a pre-season incident in Arizona, involving premiership winning captain John Sutton and current Manly forward Luke Burgess. Both players were arrested over the incident. The charges on Burgess were later dropped after he agreed to pay compensation to the security officer involved.
After careful deliberation from the NRL, the club was handed a $20,000 infringement for the scandal. South Sydney later appealed the penalty for being too harsh, claiming all information was clearly illustrated and communicated to the NRL’s integrity unit when it came to their knowledge.
South Sydney’s appealed on the basis that they believed the organisation did not set out the merit of the case and claimed they continued to inform the unit which the NRL denied.
After several weeks of investigation, the infringement will stand and South’s will hand over the money. – Marc Summers
Top photo from Fransisco Martins’ Flickr photostream.
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