Former Wallabies captain Rocky Elsom has been sentenced to two years gaol time by a French court, and is also set to pay a $109,000 fine for misusing corporate assets during his time as club president of Narbonne.
The 75-capped Wallaby did not attend the proceedings, and a manhunt is reportedly underway to locate him, according to CODE, with French authorities issuing an arrest warrant for the 42-year-old.
After representing the Wallabies from 2005-2011, Elsom transitioned into sports administration, serving as president of Narbonne from 2015-16.
In October last year, reports surfaced that Elsom fled Ireland following an international arrest warrant being issued for embezzling funds, which came with a five year prison sentence. Elsom defended himself in an exclusive interview with The Roar, with his lawyer appealing the decision.
Rocky Elsom. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)
At the time, the embezzling club funds were reportedly claimed by making unjustified expenditures to pay a coach or a general manager who was living in Australia.
Elsom was eventually acquitted on charges of forgery and use of forgery but was made to pay €230,000 in compensation to the club’s liquidator.
However, claims of misusing corporate assets still hung over the flanker, which culminated in a trial last month and reportedly carried a three-year prison sentence and fines of up $687,000 AUD.
Elsom’s lawyer requested an acquittal, and Elsom did not attend the trial.
The flanker was working as a rugby coach at a school in Ireland at the time of the warrant being issued, and he immediately fled the country – but has maintained his innocence.
“(Narbonne) achieved solid profits, had good sporting results, and remained in Pro D2 (the second tier of French rugby) until 2016 and beyond,” he said in an official statement in October last year.
“It seems that I have been targeted as a scapegoat for the future mismanagement of this famous rugby club.”
Elsom expanded on his reasoning in more detail in his exclusive interview with Christy Doran on The Roar Rugby Podcast – explaining his rapid departure from Ireland and also how he believes he has been branded a scapegoat for the club’s financial mismanagement.
“They came straight to where I was working, came straight to my home and I’d already left by then,” he said.
“I left because it would put me in a situation where I would be detained in custody and the Irish would be more or less obliged to extradite me to France.
“That would make it a lot more difficult for me to be able to defend myself from inside a police station or wherever I would be in custody.
“When they make the allegations, I think that there’s very little validity to them, especially nothing that put the club in harm’s way.
“If we go through the allegations, it’s very, very easy for me to defend.
“As much as you just want to say you didn’t do it, those things definitely happened. But who is the victim here? Where have they been able to prove that the club was disadvantaged by it? And pivotally, how did those actions lead to the relegation of the club two years after I left in 2018? And that’s a key factor in the case.”
Elsom’s whereabouts currently unknown due to the international arrest warrant.
