{"id":37477,"date":"2025-08-01T12:53:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T12:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/37477\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T12:53:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T12:53:12","slug":"louis-rees-zammit-returns-to-rugby-after-leaving-the-nfl-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/37477\/","title":{"rendered":"Louis Rees-Zammit\u00a0returns to rugby after leaving the NFL | UK News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Louis Rees-Zammit has announced he is leaving the NFL and returning to rugby after spending 18 months chasing his dream of an American football career.<\/p>\n<p>The former Wales winger was part of the Jacksonville Jaguars squad that travelled to London for two games last season.<\/p>\n<p>But the 24-year-old didn&#8217;t make a regular-season appearance, either with the Jaguars or the Kansas City Chiefs, where he also had a spell <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/louis-rees-zammit-ex-wales-rugby-star-who-quit-to-play-in-nfl-fails-to-make-kansas-city-chiefs-squad-13204147\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">but missed out in a place in their squad<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s been a great experience, but it&#8217;s time to come home. I&#8217;ve decided that this is the best time to make this decision to give myself time to get everything in place for next season,&#8221; Rees-Zammit said in a post on social media.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s only one thing that&#8217;s on my mind, that&#8217;s coming back to rugby and doing what I do best. I can&#8217;t explain how excited I am!!<\/p>\n<p>          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"sdc-article-image__item\" loading=\"lazy\" intrinsicsize=\"768x432\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/skynews-louis-rees-zammit-nfl_6668981.jpg\"   alt=\"Louis Rees-Zammit at a warm-up match with the Kansas City Chiefs. Pic: AP\"\/><\/p>\n<p>        Image:<br \/>\n        Louis Rees-Zammit at a warm-up match with the Kansas City Chiefs. Pic: AP<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;ll be more news to come soon but for now, see you soon rugby fans.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Welshman joined the <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/topic\/nfl-22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">NFL<\/a> through the league&#8217;s international player pathway, aimed at giving elite international athletes the opportunity to compete at NFL level and improve their skills.<\/p>\n<p>Rees-Zammit told Sky News last year that the decision to quit rugby was the &#8220;toughest&#8221; he had ever made.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For my dad to be able to say that his son&#8217;s in the NFL would be the most proud moment of my life &#8211; not just my dad, my brother and mum are so supportive of me and I could never do this without them,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Rees-Zammit earned 32 caps for Wales in his initial rugby career and was part of the British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Read More:<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/British and Irish Lions 2025 tour schedule\" rel=\"nofollow\">British and Irish Lions 2025 tour schedule<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/fears-for-future-of-welsh-rugby-amid-cuts-to-grassroots-scheme-13376842\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fears for future of Welsh rugby<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"sdc-site-video__accessibility-message\" data-role=\"accessibility-message\">Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player<\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/5bd85614bf01234be0eb6a4f87fee87994338ab17342f1d384b552f3815ee951_6491801.jpg\" alt=\"Wales and British Lion winger Louis Rees-Zammit quits rugby union to switch to American football\"  aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"sdc-site-video__poster-img excluded-image\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                2:39<\/p>\n<p>              The Wales star sensationally quit rugby union to switch to American football.<\/p>\n<p>His comeback to rugby coincides with a challenging period for Wales, who recently broke an 18-match losing streak and are set to welcome new head coach Steve Tandy at the end of August.<\/p>\n<p>For the first time in over a century, no Welsh player was included in head coach Andy Farrell&#8217;s starting XV for the opening match against Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Louis Rees-Zammit has announced he is leaving the NFL and returning to rugby after spending 18 months chasing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-37477","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\/37477","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=37477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}