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'I have been left with no choice but to commence court action'

Israel Folau of the Wallabies. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)

Rugby star Israel Folau has begun legal action against his former employers Rugby Australia and the NSW Waratahs for unfair dismissal.

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The decision comes after the former Wallaby and RA failed to reach an agreement at a mediation hearing at the Fair Work Commission on June 28.

“Unfortunately, our conciliation before the Fair Work Commission did not resolve the matters between us and I have been left with no choice but to commence court action,” Folau said in a statement on Thursday.

RA terminated Folau’s multimillion dollar contract over a social media post in which he paraphrased a Bible passage, saying “drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolaters” would go to hell unless they repented.

The committed Christian argues he was unfairly dismissed on religious grounds.

Folau, 30, is seeking $10 million in damages from RA and wants his contract reinstated.

More than 20,000 people have donated about $2.2 million to help fund Folau’s legal battle via a campaign page set up by the Australian Christian Lobby.

The ACL effort replaced an earlier campaign on GoFundMe, which was taken down by the platform for breaching its service guidelines.

Folau thanked his many supporters in the statement.

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“I have been blessed to have received the support of tens of thousands of Australians throughout my journey, and I want to say thank you to everyone who has offered their prayers and support. It has meant so much to (wife) Maria and me over the last few months and gives us strength for the road ahead,” he said.

– AAP

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JW 52 minutes ago
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Disagree Beaver got it wrong. Blues made that look easy. It might be a brawn over brains picture though? More in the last point, but, and this may have changed by player selection, the Reds were very lucky this game. Tele’a should not have been red carded as Ryan landed on his shoulder, and both Tate and Jock (was it) should have been yellowed carded for their offenses in stopping tries. We also had a try dissallowed by going back 10 phases in play. We all should have learned after the RWC that that is against the rules. So straight away on this simple decisions alone the result changes to go in the Blues favour, away from home and playing fairly poorly. The sleeping giant if you will. I didn’t agree with the Blues take either tbh, but to flip it around and say it’s the Reds instead is completely inaccurate (though a good side no doubt you have to give them a chance).


And you’re also riding the wave of defense wins matches a bit much. Aside from Dre’s tackling on Rieko I didn’t see anything in that match other than a bit of tiny goal line defending. I think if you role on the tap for another second you see the ball put placed for the try (not that I jump to agree with Eklund purely because he was adamant), and in general those just get scored more often than not. They are doing something good though stopping line breaks even if it is the Blues (and who also got over the line half a dozen times), I did not expect to be greeted with that stat looking at the game.

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