{"id":322619,"date":"2025-12-02T11:17:26","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T11:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/322619\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T11:17:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T11:17:26","slug":"matt-lodges-us-criminal-history-may-prevent-entry-for-season-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/322619\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Lodge\u2019s US criminal history may prevent entry for season opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before the NRL\u2019s previous Las Vegas sojourns, a handful of high-profile players – including Reece Walsh, Latrell Mitchell, Josh Papalii and Jack Wighton – had been interviewed at the US Embassy in Sydney as part of the visa screening process.<\/a><\/p>\n

Those players and staff from various clubs attracted scrutiny because of off-field incidents that led to arrests or court appearances in Australia.<\/p>\n

\"After<\/p>\n

After being stood down by the NRL, Matt Lodge resurrected his career with Brisbane.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Warrington coach Sam Burgess spent three nights in an airport hotel before his visa was processed with four minutes to spare<\/a>, allowing him to belatedly fly to Las Vegas for his team\u2019s clash with Wigan.<\/p>\n

Lodge\u2019s case would appear more complicated because his offending occurred in the US.<\/p>\n

SMH columnist and lawyer Darren Kane explained as much last year, quoting the US\u2019s Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952: \u201cGenerally speaking, a foreign national who has committed a crime involving \u2018moral turpitude\u2019 is \u2018inadmissible\u2019 into the US \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

Kane said crimes that involve intentional harm, or threat of harm, to another person \u201ctraverse the line\u201d. But he added that the line was \u201cfuzzy\u201d.<\/p>\n

NRL officials have previously liaised with authorities to ensure all players selected were able to make their way to Vegas, but Lodge could prove to be their greatest challenge.<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old\u2019s conviction in New York has not prevented him from travelling overseas. He has posted photos on social media of trips to Europe and New Zealand with his young family.<\/p>\n

He told podcaster James Graham last year: \u201cI did two or three hundred hours of community service, then they offered me another year of good behaviour to wipe all travel restrictions and that, which I was happy to take.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lodge was unavailable for Manly\u2019s trip to Las Vegas in 2024 because he was recovering from knee surgery.<\/p>\n

News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport are sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before the NRL\u2019s previous Las Vegas sojourns, a handful of high-profile players – including Reece Walsh, Latrell Mitchell,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-322619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322619","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=322619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}