{"id":334349,"date":"2025-12-08T06:24:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T06:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/334349\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T06:24:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T06:24:12","slug":"nrl-hands-down-two-year-bans-to-tonga-officials-over-eli-katoa-concussion-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/334349\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL hands down two-year bans to Tonga officials over Eli Katoa concussion controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NRL<\/a> have proposed two-year bans to the Tonga officials involved in the sickening injuries to Eli Katoa last month.<\/p>\n

Katoa suffered seizures on the sidelines after copping three separate head knocks in the space of 90 minutes in a clash against New Zealand on November 2.<\/p>\n

The Melbourne Storm star has been ruled out of the entire 2026 season<\/a> after undergoing emergency brain surgery, but remains hopeful of continuing his career in the future.<\/p>\n

Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Arrow<\/a><\/p>\n

Katoa suffered a serious head knock in a collision with a teammate during the warm-up, but still played the match and then copped two more head knocks before finally being ruled out.<\/p>\n

The NRL launched an investigation into Tonga\u2019s handling of the incident after footage of the pre-match hit with teammate quickly sparked concern.<\/p>\n

\"EliEli Katoa has been ruled out for the entire 2026 season. Credit: Instagram<\/p>\n

The investigation identified \u201ca number of serious concerns\u201d, including the failure of responsible medical and health professionals to share and disclose information that was vital to the health of Katoa.<\/p>\n

Tonga\u2019s head doctor, assistant doctor and head trainer have all been issued with two-year bans from being involved with any club, team or player in the NRL competitions, representative competitions or any other competition conducted under the auspices of the NRL or ARLC.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the yellow shirt trainer (Medical Assistant) has been issued with a formal warning.<\/p>\n

All individuals involved will also be required to undergo further training on their responsibilities under the NRL\u2019s policy for management of possible head injuries and concussions.<\/p>\n

They have five business days to respond to the penalties.<\/p>\n

More to come …<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

NRL star issues emotional health update after devastating injuries<\/p>\n

2 min read<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Eli Katoa \u2018struggling to process\u2019 devastating health situation<\/p>\n

2 min read<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NRL have proposed two-year bans to the Tonga officials involved in the sickening injuries to Eli Katoa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,4466,761,762,158,588,85],"class_list":["post-334349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-melbourne-storm","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334349","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=334349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}