{"id":745291,"date":"2026-06-18T21:29:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T21:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/745291\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T21:29:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T21:29:12","slug":"nrl-news-2026-israel-folau-considering-legal-action-arlc-wests-tigers-blocked-contract-wife-maria-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/745291\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL News 2026: Israel Folau considering legal action ARLC wests tigers blocked contract, wife Maria video"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel Folau\u2019s<\/a> legal team is considering taking court action against the Australian Rugby League Commission for restraint of trade.<\/p>\n

The move follows accusations from both Folau and wife Maria on social media<\/a> that the ARLC blocked the 37-year-old dual international from joining the Wests Tigers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Israel<\/p>\n

Israel Folau was in negotiations with the Tigers.\u00a0David Rogers<\/p>\n

Nine.com.au\u00a0revealed earlier this month<\/a> that Tigers coach Benji Marshall had been in contact with the former Broncos<\/a> and Storm<\/a> star and was hoping to sign him before the June 30 deadline.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Tigers were keen\u2026 we were keen, but the move was blocked, allegedly because of Israel\u2019s strong religious views,\u201d a source close to Folau told\u00a0Nine.com.au.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur last recourse is legal action for restraint of trade and it is something we are looking into.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maria Folau posted a video on social media on Thursday accusing the league of double standards after the initial positive response from the Tigers.<\/p>\n

She declared ARL commissioner Wayne Pearce told Folau he would not be allowed back to league following a successful recent stint in Japanese rugby union.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis reasoning behind not wanting Izzy to play is because of inclusiveness, whatever that means, and then also that it would be a bad look to have Izzy back in the game,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen an associate of ours got in contact with Wayne Pierce by text, and it was the same thing – that Izzy wasn\u2019t welcome to play.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were told by Benji that he was still keen to have Izzy back on board and that he (was) gonna try and get a contract lodged, and that the (Tigers) board were meeting on Sunday to talk about the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019ve just got back from Tonga and we\u2019ve been told that the Tigers are no longer going to lodge a contract because of the media pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019d be a distraction for the club and then also pressure from elsewhere. It\u2019s very unfortunate that the Tigers have changed their mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel Folau then commented: \u201cThe double standard from the @nrl is crazy. The game talks about inclusion, yet my Christian beliefs were said to be a problem and didn\u2019t align with their values.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the same time, players who\u2019ve committed actual offences have been welcomed back. Make it make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nine.com.au\u00a0has reached out to the ARLC and NRL<\/a> for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel Folau\u2019s legal team is considering taking court action against the Australian Rugby League Commission for restraint of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-745291","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\/745291","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=745291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}