{"id":211616,"date":"2025-10-14T02:02:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T02:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/211616\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T02:02:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T02:02:10","slug":"luther-burrell-claims-speaking-out-about-racist-abuse-ended-rugby-career-rugby-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/211616\/","title":{"rendered":"Luther Burrell claims speaking out about racist abuse ended rugby career | Rugby union"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former England player Luther Burrell has alleged he was effectively forced to retire after he spoke out about racist abuse he suffered from teammates.<\/p>\n

Burrell first alleged he had been the victim of racism while playing for Newcastle in 2022. Among the allegations<\/a> he made at the time, Burrell claimed a teammate had referred to him as a \u201cslave\u201d and told him to apply sunscreen to his wrists and ankles as that\u2019s \u201cwhere your shackles were\u201d.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Monday to the BBC, Burrell said the investigation that began after he made the claims caused his opportunities to dry up and that despite wanting to keep playing he has been unable to find a contract at a professional club for the past three years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have absolutely had to retire because of what\u2019s gone on,\u201d Burrell said. \u201cI wanted to carry on playing. I pursued and it fell through when word came out that there were investigations going on, so that was difficult. I had to just accept the fate and that this whole process is bigger than me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burrell, who played as a centre, left Newcastle<\/a> at the end of the 2021\u201122 season, after which he made his \u00adexperiences public.<\/p>\n

An investigation by the Rugby Football Union<\/a> found that \u201con the balance of probability\u201d \u00adBurrell\u2019s claims were likely true, but it could not definitively prove that most of the abuse happened at Newcastle.<\/p>\n

The club later said that the only proven incidents during his time there, which involved racist messages in a players\u2019 WhatsApp group and incidents on an away day and a night out, were \u201cgravely concerning\u201d and \u201cincredibly disappointing\u201d, but that they were unable to take disciplinary action against \u00adindividuals due to \u201cno further actionable \u00adevidence\u201d such as names or dates being provided.<\/p>\n

Burrell said much of the racism he experienced was \u201csomething that\u2019s dressed up as banter\u201d and that he had also experienced \u201cseveral traumatic experiences\u201d while playing for England, for whom he made 15 appearances between 2014 and 2016. Burrell also said there were \u201cundertones of discrimination\u201d throughout English rugby.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former England player Luther Burrell has alleged he was effectively forced to retire after he spoke out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-211616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211616","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=211616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}