Former NRL prop George Burgess is launching a shock footy comeback with a surprise club after being found not guilty of sexually touching a woman without her consent earlier this year.
The 32-year-old played 149 games for South Sydney and won a premiership with the Rabbitohs in 2014 alongside his brothers Sam and Tom, as well as his 15 caps for England.
He left the game in 2022 due to a combination of injuries and personal issues, including the accusation of sexual touching without consent and a stint in rehab to deal with gambling and depression problems.
In 2023 he returned to the Cairns Brothers team in far north Queensland and has now received approval from the South Sydney Junior Rugby League board to play the remainder of the remaining matches of the 2024 season with the South Eastern Seagulls , which is based in Malabar in Sydney’s south east.
The ex-South Sydney star was charged in March 2022 after a woman claimed Burgess “touched her buttocks” without her consent.
Former NRL sponsor George Burgess (pictured playing for Souths) launches shock footy comeback with Sydney’s South Eastern Seagulls team
Burgess (pictured outside court in March) was acquitted earlier this year of groping a woman he knew
In May this year he was cleared of the charges, with the judge ruling that Burgess had gone to the woman’s home with the intention of being intimate with her while delivering a jumper for a charity event, but had not groped her.
Burgess pleaded not guilty to a single charge of sexually touching another person without consent in the Mascot woman’s home.
The former footy star admitted going to the home of the woman, who he had known for about a decade, after agreeing to donate a signed shirt to charity.
As Burgess called the court via audiovisual link, Magistrate Emma Manea told the court the former NRL player had visited the woman’s home for just 11 minutes from 10.24am to 10.35am.
The magistrate told the court she believed Mr Burgess’ evidence and acquitted the former footballer.
Earlier this year, Burgess told the court he was only “cheeky and friendly” to the woman but it was “nothing more than that”.
He was married at the time but told the court he planned to be intimate with the woman and admitted to being “flirty”, asking her to “stay and be naughty” with him.
During the first day of the hearing in October 2023, the woman told the court she felt “violated” when Mr Burgess tried to kiss her moments after handing over the jumper.
Burgess (pictured playing for Souths) returned to footy with the Cairns Brothers in 2023 after a brief spell with the Cairns Brothers team in far north Queensland
She offered him a cup of tea to “try to defuse the situation.”
“I opened the closet and he turned around (and) grabbed me at the bottom,” the woman told police in a body-worn vision played in court.
‘I froze inside and just looked at the tea. He put his hand on either side of my body and pressed himself right against me. … I told him, ‘This isn’t going to happen.’
The court was told Mr Burgess was asked if he was still married and he replied: ‘Yes, but you know how it goes.’
Mr Burgess continued: ‘Come on, five minutes, stay and be naughty with me.’
He denied kissing the woman or grabbing her buttocks, but said he put his hand on her back as she made him a cup of tea ‘to be friendly’.
“She walked over to the kitchen bench and I came up a little behind her to see what tea she was having because I like Yorkshire tea,” Burgess told the court in March.
The Englishman’s new career move comes just over a year after he split from his wife Joanna King (pictured together) after seven years of marriage.
The court was told the woman said: ‘I’m not that kind of girl, I wouldn’t do that to another woman.’
While sitting in the lounge, Mr Burgess admitted telling her: ‘We’ve known each other for 10 years, nothing has ever happened between us, but something should happen.’
In his testimony, Burgess admitted that he noticed the woman was feeling “a little bit uncomfortable,” which prompted him to leave.
When asked in court if the woman had ‘rejected’ his advances from the moment he arrived, Burgess said ‘yes’.
The 32-year-old returns to the field after last playing in the NRL with the St George Illawarra Dragons in 2022 (pictured)
The court was told Burgess sent the woman a “horny devil emoji” after she left her home, which she ignored, but later sent a message saying she was “really uncomfortable” with what had happened.
“She said you had put a huge cloud over something so nice about the sweater and that you had known each other for ten years. She thought she could trust you in her own home,” said prosecutor Adrian Walsh. to Mr Burgess during his testimony.
Mr Burgess told the court he was ‘upset and shocked’ by the message and replied that he was ‘so sorry’ as he wanted to ‘defuse’ the situation.
The prosecutor asked, “You tried to water it down so it would protect your family and your career.”
“Yes,” Mr Burgess replied.
