{"id":152363,"date":"2025-09-18T15:44:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T15:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/152363\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T15:44:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T15:44:08","slug":"nrl-victor-radley-to-serve-10-game-sydney-roosters-ban-after-drug-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/152363\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL: Victor Radley to serve 10-game Sydney Roosters ban after drug investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

England lock Victor Radley will serve a 10-game ban from his club Sydney Roosters after being implicated in a drug investigation into a former team-mate.<\/p>\n

The Roosters said in a statement on Thursday that the 27-year-old had brought the National Rugby League club into disrepute in relation to “allegedly obtaining an illegal substance”.<\/p>\n

He will miss 10 games without pay and donate A$30,000 (\u00a314,600) to a local hospital for cancer research, which the Roosters say is the heaviest sanction imposed in the club’s history.<\/p>\n

Radley, who was not charged by police, said in the statement that “I accept the sanctions in full”.<\/p>\n

“I want to sincerely apologise to the club, my team-mates, our sponsors, members and fans for the negative spotlight I have brought on the Roosters,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I will work hard to earn back the trust and respect of everyone who supports this great club.”<\/p>\n

Radley was born in Sydney and has an English father. He chose to represent England<\/a> and has so far played in nine Tests.<\/p>\n

BBC Sport understands that he remains available for England selection.<\/p>\n

Radley’s former team-mate Brandon Smith, who has played 13 Tests for New Zealand, faces Queensland police allegations that he supplied drugs and disclosed inside information for illegal betting.<\/p>\n

Smith’s lawyer told Southport Magistrates Court, in Queensland, on Thursday that the South Sydney Rabbitohs hooker would contest the charges against him.<\/p>\n

The Roosters were knocked out of the NRL finals last weekend, so Radley’s ban means he will miss almost half of next season.<\/p>\n

England are set to host Australia in a three-Test series<\/a> between 25 October and 8 November.<\/p>\n

The Rugby Football League, English rugby league’s governing body, has declined to comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England lock Victor Radley will serve a 10-game ban from his club Sydney Roosters after being implicated in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-152363","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}