NRL referees’ union considering legal action against boss of Warriors sponsor after "cheating" comment

The NRL referees’ union is considering taking legal action against One NZ boss Jason Paris after after his tweet accusing officials of “cheating”.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the Professional Rugby League Match Officials (PRLMO) - which represents the sport’s referees - has spoken to lawyers about potentially launching defamation proceedings against Paris, the chief executive of Warriors sponsor One NZ.

Paris described referee decisions against the club as “cheating of the highest order” on social media during the side’s 18-6 loss to the Penrith Panthers on Saturday night.

NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo would hit back at Paris’ comments, saying the NRL was reviewing them closely and “questioning their integrity is completely unacceptable”.

PRLMO boss Matt Cecchin said his organisation sought out advice from lawyers about their position.

“It’s not called for and the comments are appalling,” Cecchin told the Sydney Morning Herald. “It does nothing to help and improve officials within our game, or any officials really. That’s why we’ll do whatever we can to ensure comments like this are stamped out of our game, and stamped out of any game for any officials.

“Any sort of mention of the word bias, be it conscious or unconscious, is just unacceptable. It hurts our game at every level.

“We feel strong enough to seek legal opinion and based on the information we’ll pursue whatever means necessary to ensure that it’s seen as a deterrent for anyone who thinks about making any such comments around bias.”

On Monday, Paris took to Twitter again to back down from his accusation of cheating.

“A bit of interest in my support for the mighty @NZWarriors. Just to clear things up - I do not think the @NRL referees are cheating. They come to work everyday to do their best job for the game. My comments were made in the heat of the moment as a passionate fan.

“However, I do believe that there is unconscious bias happening every week against the Warriors & it needs to be addressed. All we want is consistency, but we are not getting it. Take opinions out of it & analyse the video footage from past games & compare our decisions vrs other teams. I think it will find that we are being disadvantaged - then we can work out why & take steps to fix it.

“We will always back our team.”

The Warriors only conceded two penalties more than the Panthers in the loss, but gave away four ruck infringements to one and had two players - Jackson Ford and Demitric Sifakula - sin-binned in the second half of the contest.

“Officials make mistakes like players do in every game,” Cecchin said. “We learn from those, but the comments taken offence to here do nothing to improve the standard of officiating. Make comments about mistakes is one thing, but suggesting bias or cheating is just not acceptable.

“We feel the comments made by this person don’t reflect 99 per cent of people that know anything about, or follow rugby league. That’s why they’re so out of the norm it’s not funny. We’re doing this to protect past officials, present officials and emerging officials.

“That’s why we’ll do whatever it takes.”

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission