Cronulla NRL players Andrew and David Fifita investigated over alleged threats to junior rugby league match officials
By
Lucy Marks
Updated about an hour ago
Cronulla NRL players Andrew and David Fifita are being investigated over an alleged crowd abuse incident at a junior rugby league game that has prompted the Sharks' chief executive to say the pair have "let the whole of rugby league down".
Despite the chief executive's comments, Andrew Fifita was not stood down from his starting position for Sunday's match against Canterbury, although David Fifita was dropped from his spot on the bench.
It is alleged the twin brothers physically and verbally threatened three young match officials after the A-grade game between St Patrick's and St Mary's at Glenwood yesterday.
An incident report obtained by the ABC said David Fifita was acting as the St Patrick's trainer and allegedly said to the referee "you're a ... disgrace mate" among other comments at the end of the game.
The match official reported that David Fifita allegedly refused to leave the ground when asked to and continued to verbally abuse the referee.
In response, the referee reportedly started to record the incident on his mobile phone, at which point David Fifita's brother Andrew allegedly walked into a roped off area and told the young referee to "delete that now or I'll smash you".
The report said Andrew Fifita then allegedly charged towards the referee and tried to snatch the mobile phone before numerous people intervened, holding him back.
The match official said during the incident the behaviour displayed by the Fifita brothers made him feel "very uncomfortable and threatened" and that if people had not physically intervened "the matter had the potential to escalate into a physical altercation".
The incident report also detailed allegations that another ground manager told the referee "look, can you just delete that video and not report it, come on let's not make a big deal out of it, [Andrew Fifita] has a lot to lose".
Penrith District Rugby League Referees Association president Phil Haines said reports of the pair's alleged behaviour were extremely concerning.
"The abuse was quite disgraceful in my opinion, reading the report," he said.
Crowd abuse deters junior match officials: official
Mr Haines said the 24-year-old referee was extremely upset by the incident.
"He's been refereeing for 10 years and has aspirations to reach the NRL and as of this morning he doesn't want anything to do with rugby league, so for me that's the issue," he said.
Mr Haines said that in the past year he had lost more than 30 match officials because of crowd abuse.
In April, his organisation announced it was going to employ security guards at junior games to keep referees safe from violent parents and onlookers.
Formal complaints have been lodged against the Fifita twins. David Fifita was named on the Sharks' bench on Tuesday, but was reportedly dropped after the captain's run on Friday, a day before the incident at Glenwood.
Inappropriate behaviour 'let the whole of rugby league down'
The Cronulla Sharks said it was likely the brothers would face sanctions over the alleged incident.
Sharks chief executive Lyall Gorman said the pair had behaved badly and added that he found the allegations "disturbing and abhorrent".
"There are some areas of grey in the assertions, but there is certainly no doubt that both of our players, on one level or another have acted very inappropriately in terms of letting themselves down, letting their team-mates down, letting our club down and more importantly letting the whole of rugby league down," he said.
Mr Gorman said it was too early in the investigation to suspend the pair from playing.
"To what level, and to what sanctions our club will need to look at and apply, I'll have a clearer view once we have all the facts," he said.
NRL chief executive Dave Smith said in a statement match officials "are the lifeblood of the game" and that if either player admitted toabusing a match official, they should be stood down from Sunday's game.
