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Israel Folau raises over half a million dollars in donations as $7m property empire revealed

Israel Folau. (Photo/Getty Images)

Sacked Wallabies star Israel Folau has raised over half a million dollars in donations for his legal battle with Rugby Australia.

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The controversial figure had his $5m contract ripped up by the union in May after he made social media posts which cited Bible readings, which were deemed to be homophobic.

It was the second time in the space of a year that Folau, a devout Christian, had posted on Instagram and Twitter voicing his beliefs against the LGBT community.

Rugby Australia terminated his contract following the second outburst, after the national governing body deemed that the 30-year-old had breached their Code of Conduct.

Earlier this month, Folau launched legal proceedings with the Fair Work Commission against Rugby Australia, and the Waratahs, for a breach of contract of the Fair Work Act, which makes it unlawful for an individual’s employment to be terminated on the basis of religious belief, and is seeking $10m in damages.

The former 73-test veteran then established a Go Fund Me page earlier this week with the aim of raising $3m for his court battle by 10:55am on Saturday AEST.

At the time of writing, Folau had raised $514,267 from more than 6000 donators within two days of creating the page.

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This is despite revelations from the Daily Telegraph of Folau sitting on a property portfolio of $7m, and recently sold a $500,000 Lamborghini.

The newspaper reported that the disgraced star owns six homes and three blocks of land across New South Wales and Queensland under his own name or through his investment company, which is estimated to have risen to $7m in value.

The publication of the page has sparked fierce and widespread backlash from the rugby community.

“From our perspective [Go Fund Me] is a place where sick children get support, so it’s certainly not a strategy we think is appropriate,” Folau’s former boss and Rugby Australia chief executive Raelene Castle said to Nine News.

Folau’s former Wallabies and Waratahs teammate Drew Mitchell has also been an outspoken advocate against Folau’s actions.

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“YOU are in a fight that YOU chose to be in after YOU broke the terms of YOUR contract, the kids below are in a fight they NEVER wanted to be in & yet YOU think YOU deserve donations more than they do??!!,” he posted on Twitter.

However, former Australian Christian Lobby chief Lyle Shelton has defended Folau, saying: “if Israel loses, we all do.”

Folau said in his plea for donations that he had “the fight of his life on my hands”.

The case is unprecedented in rugby, and could be a landmark test for religious freedoms within Australia.

In other news:

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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