- Former Souths frontrower George Burgess returns to football
- Burgess ran for the South Eastern Seagulls last weekend
- Was acquitted of charges that he groped a woman in 2022
Former NRL mainstay and Grand Final winner George Burgess has finally made his football comeback with Sydney’s A-Grade team, the South Eastern Seagulls.
The 32-year-old has played 149 games for South Sydney, winning the 2014 championship with the Rabbitohs alongside his brothers Sam and Tom, and has also made 15 appearances for England.
He retired from football in 2022 while playing for St George Illawarra due to a combination of a serious hip injury and personal problems, including a charge of sexual contact without consent and a period in rehabilitation for gambling problems and depression.
In 2023 he returned to the Cairns Brothers team in far north Queensland and earlier this year he was given the go-ahead by the South Sydney Junior Rugby League board to play the remaining games of the 2024 season for the South Eastern Seagulls, based in Malabar in Sydney’s south-east.
Last weekend, Burgess made his debut on the field against the Coogee Dolphins at Kensington Oval, ultimately helping his team to an impressive 16-6 victory.
The English footballer was encouraged by his brother Tom Burgess and former Souths mainstay Roy Asotasi.
The former Rabbitohs star was charged in March 2022 after a woman alleged Burgess “touched her buttocks” without her consent.
In May this year, he was cleared of the charges after a judge ruled that Burgess had gone to the woman’s home with the intention of being intimate with her while delivering a shirt for a charity event, but had not groped her.
Former NRL mainstay George Burgess has made his football comeback with Sydney’s A-Grade team the South Eastern Seagulls, as his identical twin brother Tom looks on (pictured)
Burgess is pictured attacking the defence as he helps the Seagulls defeat the Coogee Dolphins at Kensington Oval
Burgess pleaded not guilty to charges that he touched another person without consent in the woman’s home in Mascot.
The former football star admitted that he had gone to the house of the woman, whom he had known for about ten years, and that he had offered a signed shirt for charity.
As Burgess dialled into court via an audio-visual link, Judge Emma Manea told the court the former NRL player had been at the woman’s home for just 11 minutes, from 10.24am to 10.35am.
The magistrate told the court she believed Mr Burgess’s testimony and acquitted the former football player.
Earlier this year, Burgess told the court he was only “cheeky and friendly” to the woman, but that it was “nothing more than that”.
He was married at the time but told the court he had planned to become intimate with the woman, admitting he had been “flirty” and had asked her to “stay with him and be naughty”.
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 he had handed her her shirt.
She offered him a cup of tea to ‘calm the situation’.
“I opened the closet and he turned around and grabbed me,” the woman told police in a body-worn video played in court.
“I froze inside and just looked at the tea. He put a hand on either side of my body and pressed himself against me. … I said to him, ‘This is not going to happen.'”
The court was told that Mr Burgess was asked if he was still married. He replied: ‘Yes, but you know how it is.’
Burgess (pictured playing for Souths in 2013) was acquitted of groping a woman he knew earlier this year
Mr Burgess continued, ‘Come on, stay for another five minutes and be naughty with me.’
He denied kissing the woman or grabbing her bottom, but did say he had put his hand on her back when she made him a cup of tea, “to be nice”.
“She walked over to the kitchen counter and I came up behind her to see what tea she was using because I like Yorkshire tea,” Mr Burgess told the court in March.
The court was told the woman had said: ‘I’m not that kind of girl, I wouldn’t do this to another woman.’
Sitting on the sofa, Mr Burgess admitted that he had said to her: ‘We’ve known each other for 10 years, nothing has ever happened between us, but something should have happened.’