Ireland flyhalf Paddy Jackson and Ulster teammate Stuart Olding have been sacked by their province and their contracts with the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) terminated despite being cleared in a rape trial, the IRFU announced yesterday.
In a trial last month, both Jackson and Olding were acquitted of raping a woman in 2016 after a night out, but an internal review by both Ulster Rugby and the IRFU decided the pair should be sacked.
For 26-year-old Jackson it brings a brutal end to a Test career, at least for the foreseeable future, which had seen him earn 25 caps.
Photo: AFP
Prior to the incident, Jackson was the undisputed understudy to Ireland great Johnny Sexton.
Dashing center Olding, 25, had won four caps although he was far down the pecking order in terms of the first-choice Test side even before the charges were brought.
“Following a review, conducted in the aftermath of recent court proceedings, the Irish Rugby Football Union and Ulster Rugby have revoked the contracts of Patrick Jackson and Stuart Olding with immediate effect,” a statement said. “In arriving at this decision, the Irish Rugby Football Union and Ulster Rugby acknowledge our responsibility and commitment to the core values of the game: Respect, inclusivity and integrity.”
Despite being unanimously acquitted last month the pair had faced a backlash on social media, on the streets and in the mainstream media over unedifying text messages they exchanged after the night out that led to the rape accusation.
Fellow Ulster teammate Craig Gilroy has been suspended by the province till Thursday for a text message he sent to the pair.
Jackson yesterday said he was “deeply disappointed” by the decision to end his contract.
The latest protest against the duo saw dozens of people on Friday stage a protest outside the stadium in Belfast ahead of Ulster’s Pro14 match against the Ospreys, the side’s first home game since the trial.
The rally was organized by the Belfast Feminist Network.
Pressure was also exerted by key sponsors.
Ulster Rugby’s shirt sponsor Bank of Ireland said it was “highly concerned” about the “serious behavior and conduct issues” that emerged in the trial.
The bank, which has sponsored the club for 20 years, contacted Ulster Rugby chief executive Shane Logan regarding the case.
More than 100 supporters also helped pay for an advertisement in a local newspaper urging for them to be removed.
“To the leadership of the Irish Rugby Football Union and Ulster Rugby... The content of social media exchanges involving Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding was reprehensible. Such behavior falls far beneath the standard that your organizations represent and as such we demand that neither of these men represents Ulster or Ireland now or at any point in the future,” the advertisement said. “We expect an answer to this letter. Yours, concerned fans.”
However, the pair were not without their supporters.
Earlier in the week, an online petition calling for their reinstatement gathered thousands of signatures.
The Change.org petition said they should “be reinstated to the Ulster Rugby squad as soon as possible.”
Former Ulster and Ireland captain Willie John McBride added his considerable weight to the debate, saying both players should be permitted to resume their careers.
Mindful of the issues about players’ behavior off the field and some of the opinions expressed in the text messages, the IRFU also said it would launch “an in-depth review of existing structures and educational programs, within the game in Ireland, to ensure the importance of these core values is clearly understood, supported and practiced at every level of the game.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier