Ex-Wallabies captain opens up on ongoing French legal battle and how it’s affected his reputation
Former Wallabies captain and flanker Rocky Elsom.
Ex-Wallabies captain and back-row Rocky Elsom has revealed how his ongoing legal battle in France has damaged his reputation and prevented him from finding work in rugby.
Elsom has been in limbo after being convicted by a French court back in 2024 of forgery and misusing corporate assets while he was the president of the Narbonne rugby club.
The 43-year-old, who represented Australia as a flanker in 75 Tests between 2005 and 2011, is appealing his conviction and two-year prison sentence, which he received last year.
He was initially handed a five-year sentence in 2024 but was retried on appeal.
While appearing on the 2GB radio station’s Breakfast Show with Ben Fordham, Elsom opened up on how his legal battle has affected his rugby career and how he is battling to find employment in the game.
When asked whether he has been in situations in Australia where people in rugby circles were avoiding him due to the perception that he was involved in wrongdoing in the Narbonne matter, Elsom gave a blunt reply.
“Yeah, of course and that’s completely understandable,” he said. “This has been going on for 10 years.”
Allegations appearing constantly in the French media
He said the allegations against him would not disappear because it was reported on repeatedly in the French media.
“The newspaper articles coming out of France after I left were constantly talking about this,” he explained.
“So, in rugby terms, in rugby circles, you couldn’t be employed.”
Elsom revealed that he was initially not informed about the allegations or investigation against him in France and he was also not present when the court found him guilty.
“I think there are two things. First is the trial is largely unlawful because of that,” he said. “You can’t not notify the defendant of the trial and two years on, I said it in the beginning, but it was hard to believe; two years on still crickets from the prosecutor. Secondly, there are the charges.
“So the charges at their worst amount to hundreds of dollars potentially of damage, hundreds of euros of damage, which is ridiculous.
“Now they’ve walked back from almost all of those, but there’s still the charge of asset abuse and to prove asset abuse they have to say that the club was in a bad financial position and could not recover from that position two years later. That is a ridiculous thing to say.”
Elsom served as Narbonne’s president from 2015 to 2016 and insists that the club was financially strong when he stepped down from his position.
“So the financial reports from the time that I left, not lodged by me, lodged by the guys after I had left, show the club was in the best financial position of all time, he said.
“And at very least three million euros better than when I first received the club.
“Now you can’t argue with those. So why is there still a charge? And this is my question to the prosecutor. Why is there still the potential charge of asset abuse when these documents show that?
“I must have had some ability from running that club and having consecutive years of profit and being quite successful on the field, but you can’t employ someone like that, that has that at least hanging over. That’s the intention.
“They didn’t want me to work in rugby again and that’s fine, but in no small part, that was the intention of doing this.”
Not the first Australian to face allegations
Elsom said Narbonne’s previous owners, who were in charge of the club for more than 20 years, were behind the allegations against him and revealed that he was not the first Australian to receive such treatment.
“The reason, and it’s not just me, there was another Australian president before me, Anthony Hill, a former employee of Rugby Australia, a good friend of Michael Cheika’s,” he said.
“There was a rumor that he stole 300,000 euros and it went everywhere. The police were going to pick him up at the airport. They knew that he did it. They’d done the investigation and he was going to be put away for it.
“Complete rubbish. Not a skerrick of evidence, but that went on for months. That was something that, at the time, you’re like, ‘There is no evidence of this’. Why do people keep saying it?’
“In this particular town, you get people that do that type of thing. Inadvertently, from when I started at the club, the successes that the club had when I was there caused trouble for a group of people that had run it for 25 years.
“When they would get criticism because I was running the club well and they weren’t involved, then rather than get on board, they would do things like this.”
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Fordham asked Elsom whether he misused corporate funds or assets and he replied: “No. They’re not actually alleging that I did.” He then asked whether the former Wallabies star forged documents and his response was: “The forgery didn’t meet the definition of forgery. I signed my name on the date. End of story, of course, I withdrew it, but that was for the headlines.
“That’s for everyone to read and go, there must be something.”