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Gisborne: Planned outages Tue-WedNRL could face significant legal battles over R360 bans
Charles Goodsir • October 14th, 2025 12:42 pm
The NRL could face significant legal issues if they follow through on their threat to ban players from the competition if they join the rebel R360 competition.
As many as 12 NRL stars have been linked to the rebel rugby competition that has substantial financial backing from England, American and Saudi Arabian consortiums.
Australian Rugby League Commission chair Peter V’landys has spoken publicly about deterring players away from R360 including potential bans from the NRL.
According to Brydens Lawyers’ Lee Hagipantelis, Andrew Abdo and Peter V’landys may not have the legal standing to suspend players from returning to the NRL.
“It’s an interesting one,” Hagipantelis told SEN 1170 Breakfast.
“The NRL can attempt to impose some sanctions to preclude a player from returning.
“However, I have no doubt that the NRL would face some significant legal hurdles under Australian employment and contract law.
“It would likely be subject to a challenge. Any restriction on a person’s ability to work or trade is void unless it can be established that it’s in the reasonable commercial interest to the party and public interest.
“The NRL is not the player’s employer. The player is employed by the club.
“If the NRL were to veto a player’s contract for playing in a rebel league, on balance, the interest of judgement would serve the player more than the NRL.
“The NRL would have a lot of difficulty establishing that it was a reasonable restraint of trade.
“The courts take a very liberal view over people’s entitlement to work for an employer of their choice.
“The courts do not look favourably on any unfair restraints.”
Hagipantelis, alongside former Wests Tigers CEO Justin Pascoe, owns a 25 per cent stake in Maverick Sports Partners who have stakes in the Newcastle Jets A-League Men franchise as well as the Sunshine Coast Lightning Super Netball team.
Hagipantelis confirmed to SEN that he had met with R360 representatives and warned the NRL and Rugby Australia to take the rebel league far more seriously.
“Justin Pascoe and I receive a lot of invitations to meet up with people,” Hagipantelis added.
“I had a coffee with the CEO of R360 and they should not be dismissed so readily as an organisation.
“There seems to be a lot of money behind the scenes to put together, what they believe, to be an exciting and new league.
“I don’t think it serves any interest to be so dismissive of who they are. There are a lot of substantial business people and money behind it.
“They are trying to resuscitate rugby union on a global stage (and) it should be taken seriously.”
Ryan Papenhuyzen and Zac Lomax are two of the most high profile NRL players to have been linked to R360.
