{"id":757429,"date":"2026-06-24T15:31:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T15:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/757429\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T15:31:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T15:31:25","slug":"nrl-news-2026-knights-player-asu-kepaoa-suspended-for-six-games-after-homophobic-slur-in-nsw-cup-vs-dragons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/757429\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2026: Knights player Asu Kepaoa suspended for six games after homophobic slur in NSW Cup vs Dragons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/nrl\/newcastle-knights\" class=\"sc-jNzrEP eIMCEl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Newcastle Knights<\/a> player Asu Kepaoa has been hit with a six-match suspension after using a homophobic slur towards an opponent in a NSW Cup game. <\/p>\n<p>Kepaoa was sent off during Friday night\u2019s NSW Cup clash against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/nrl\/st-george-illawarra-dragons\" class=\"sc-jNzrEP eIMCEl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">St George Illawarra<\/a> after he allegedly called a Dragons rival a slur.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/506adac558d2fa68ea6f95f1b073b8477f64f850e7ece81e02c751941be3c820.png\"  width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"_0b53bae146db0b62 _7475dd3391ee1518\" style=\"--text-color:var(--color-text-secondary)\">Asu Kepaoa in action for the Knights.\u00a0NRL Images<\/p>\n<p>Yet to play in first grade this season, Kepaoa will now be banned for six matches after fronting the NSWRL judiciary on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n<p>The club confirmed that the forward plead guilty to the contrary conduct charge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Newcastle Knights are an inclusive club and pride ourselves on being a welcoming place for all players, staff and supporters,\u201d the statement said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cLanguage that causes harm to individuals or communities has no place in our club, in the NRL, or in our community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Appearing before the judiciary on Wednesday night, Kepaoa issued a personal apology acknowledging the harm caused by his choice of words.<\/p>\n<p>The 26-year-old will now sit on the sidelines for over a month while he receives appropriate training on the use of language and club responsibilities. <\/p>\n<p>Kepaoa played 42 first grade games for the Wests Tigers before joining the Knights this season. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Newcastle Knights player Asu Kepaoa has been hit with a six-match suspension after using a homophobic slur towards&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":757430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-757429","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\/757429","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=757429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}