The NRL are set to hand Victor Radley a further punishment on top of the one he has already received from Sydney Roosters following his involvement in the Brandon Smith saga.

Radley has been given a ten-week suspension by the Roosters after it emerged he was caught up in Smith’s battle against allegations he has supplied cocaine as well as disclosing inside knowledge for betting.

Radley will also lose out on around $150,000 of salary, with the Roosters opting to suspend him without pay in a shocking turn of events. It had been mooted at one point that they were going to consider encouraging him to find a new club for the 2026 season, which would have put Super League and NRL sides on red alert.

The England international is free to represent his country this autumn, as revealed by Love Rugby League earlier this week, after Shaun Wane insisted he would pick the forward if he is fit.

But Radley’s sanctions may not end with what has happened at the Roosters. Fresh reports in Australia have suggested that the NRL are going to come down heavy on the forward for potentially bringing the game into disrepute, with Smith also set to be targeted by Peter V’landys and Andrew Abdo too.

With Radley’s name all over the news for the wrong reasons in recent days, there is a belief – according to a report from Code Sports – that it has robbed the NRL of the usual space it would expect to receive for its play-off coverage.

That report also suggests that Canterbury’s original hopes of attracting a crowd of around 70,000 for their game against Penrith on Sunday have effectively been ruled out due to a lack of marketing, with Radley and Smith’s names instead dominating the press and the column inches.

Roosters chairman Nick Politis, who previously said the club had a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to drugs, insists that if the club had legally been able to terminate Radley’s contract, then that would have happened.

“I think if the grounds were there for us to rip up his contract, we would have,” Politis said. “But we didn’t have that. He wasn’t charged with anything, so there were no grounds to terminate his contract.

“Could we have gone down the path of sacking him for bringing the club into disrepute? Maybe, but we would have left ourselves open to a wrongful dismissal [case].

“We took the most severe course of action available to us.”

But Radley will now face further punishment from the NRL, it seems.