NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo said it was “very disappointing” to hear reports of an allegation of rape by a player, as the code prepares to break a crowd record for the first game of the Women’s State of Origin series.
Nine reported on Wednesday evening that a Queensland-based NRL player had been accused of rape with police launching an investigation. The player cannot be named for legal reasons.
“The Queensland Police Service is investigating a sexual assault complaint relating to an incident on the Gold Coast on Tuesday May 14 2024. Investigations into this matter are ongoing,” police said in a statement on Thursday.
Abdo said this was a “very serious” allegation and the NRL was still speaking with relevant parties to understand the facts.
“All I can say is that it’s very disappointing to hear about these allegations,” Abdo said at the launch of Magic Round in Brisbane.
The first match of the Women’s State of Origin series will be played in Brisbane tonight, and a crowd in excess of the previous record of 18,275 is expected despite rain in Brisbane.
The match marks the start of the first-ever three game Women’s Origin series, and has been pitched as a celebration of women’s rugby league as part of the game’s showpiece Magic Round.
Abdo said the timing of the news was unfortunate.
“Clearly I’m disappointed, but having said that, Magic Round is about the fans. 150,000 people are going to be coming across four days of football, and we’ll keep moving,” he said.
“We have strong policies in place, we have a zero tolerance for any form of violence against anyone, and so we will wait to see what the facts are and then be able to say more in due course.”
The NRLW is expanding to 12 teams next season, and Abdo said the league would consider adding women’s games to the slate for the Las Vegas season opener.
“Having a woman’s rugby league game in Las Vegas we think is an extraordinary opportunity to show Americans in the rest of the world just how great a product we have, both the NRL, NRLW competition and players and putting our female athletes on that type of global stage is incredibly exciting.”
He said if the weather held out on Thursday, the NRL was hoping for a crowd of more than 25,000.
Queensland won last year’s two-match Origin series on aggregate score, after both teams won one match each.
• Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
