- Jarryd Hayne is ready for a new legal battle
- This month he faces a civil case
- Hayne is serving a three-year prison sentence
Jarryd Hayne is set for another major legal battle after the woman he was found guilty of launched civil proceedings against the disgraced footy star.
Hayne is serving a three-year prison sentence for the sexual assault of a woman during the 2018 NRL final. He is appealing the criminal conviction and maintains his innocence.
It is the second civil case Hayne is facing, after reportedly paying nearly $100,000 to settle an unrelated rape case while playing for the San Francisco 49ers in the US in 2019.
The 35-year-old’s legal bills, News Corp claims, are already in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, although it is unclear how much he will have to pay if he loses this latest civil case.
Meanwhile, the NRL will wait until Hayne has exhausted all legal options before deciding whether to strip him of his 2009 and 2014 Dally M medals.
Jarryd Hayne is facing another major legal battle later this month
If so, this would be the first time the NRL has stripped titles from an individual.
They have done this before as a team, with Melbourne’s premierships in 2007 and 2009 scrapped after salary cap cheating.
At Parramatta they will likely follow the NRL’s lead.
Hayne was twice awarded the Eels’ illustrious Ken Thornett Medal, while he also won the Jack Gibson coaching award in 2009 and was the club’s rookie of the year in 2006.
The fullback has been largely missing from the NRL highlights in recent years after being one of the game’s most recognizable players.
He came to prominence during Parramatta’s run to the 2009 grand final, producing one of the most dominant runs in memory to help the Eels to their first decider in eight years.
He was also the man behind NSW’s drought-breaking State of Origin success in 2014, starring in Game I and then running the ball dead to reach the series in Sydney.
In total he scored 121 tries in 214 NRL matches, representing NSW 23 times and Australia and Fiji in a total of 21 matches.
He was also never far from the headlines after being targeted in a drive-by shooting in Kings Cross in 2008 and shocking the NRL in late 2014 by deciding to pursue a career in the NFL.
The disgraced footy star is facing a civil case against the woman he was convicted of sexually assaulting in 2018
By the time Hayne was charged, he had returned to the NRL, but his best playing days were behind him.
His final year at Parramatta resulted in a wooden spoon, and Hayne would start the 2019 pre-season unsigned.
Given his past performance, it was likely he would still earn a contract.
But 20 days after the start of the official rugby league year in November 2018, he was charged with assaulting a woman in Newcastle.
After four and a half years of unsuccessfully fighting these charges, Hayne’s rugby league performances could be one of the final punishments to be struck down.