Only a few hours after his team’s crushing 28-12 victory over the Parramatta Eels in the NRL championship game, Penrith Panthers player Api Koroisau’s troubled background has once again come up with him.
On Sunday, Koroisau was a key player as the Panthers won their second straight championship, but an incident off the field has come back to haunt him.
The athlete was referred to as “a cheater” on social media by a lady whose illicit relationship with married Koroisau was exclusively disclosed by Daily Mail Australia last year.
This past week, the lady said, “He is… a cheater,” alluding to the fact that she had been sneaked into the football star’s hotel room during quarantine camp the previous year.
When Koroisau admitted to sneaking a lady he met online into his accommodation at a 2021 State of Origin camp, the NRL slapped him a two-game penalty and forced him to pay $50,000.
She said that the NRL never contacted her to get a comment regarding twice violating Covid-19 biosecurity regulations.
Koroisau was expelled from the Origin team and criticized heavily for his behavior.
Later, he expressed regret and admitted that his “selfish, stupid acts” had “damaged” his wife and two kids.
But when the lady at the center of the story checked herself into the same hotel as the Panthers on Saturday night, flashbacks from his past came flooding back.
Along with a video showing the squad from Sunday morning, she commented on Instagram, “Tell me Penrith are staying at your hotel without informing you they are.”
Koroisau and his friends passed the lady as they made their way to the team bus, avoiding her eyes.
After the event from the previous year, the footballer and his wife Amy reunited, although at the time, she laid the responsibility at the feet of Koroisau and the media.
I don’t believe it is in the best interests of our family to deal with it, she stated, despite the fact that there have been some horrible falsehoods and misrepresentations in certain media coverage.
Although this has wounded me a great deal, Api is a terrific father, and I have no doubt that he will put the necessary measures in place to learn from this and become a better version of himself.
Koroisau has received criticism in several ways after the championship game in addition to being labelled “still a cheater.”
For remarks he made on Monday during Penrith’s celebrations, he was also called “classless.”
At Panthers Stadium, Koroisau, who is leaving Penrith to join Wests Tigers, was questioned about his feelings towards leaving the team.
The past three years I’ve spent here have been amazing. For me, it’s become like a family,” he remarked.
There is a ton of youthful talent. It’s very great to end on such a high, and I’ll probably do the same thing at the Tigers,’ he stated sarcastically before breaking out in laughter.
Koroisau and a few other Panthers players, according to Paul Kent of Foxtel’s NRL 360 program, “lacked class” and were “acting like adolescents.”
To be really honest, it is foolish. Penrith, they p*** in their own party and have a smug attitude,” he stated.
“Koroisau made fun of the Tigers, whom he will be joining next season.” Where is the backing, acceptance, and recognition for the prior Penrith teams?
The person Koroisau cheated with in the previous year said his sentence was not harsh enough since he broke the game’s Covid bubble and hid it for three weeks, even though she saw an opposing player be suspended for doing an almost exact replica of the same offense.
She said at the time, “There was all the public disgrace, but two weeks (ban) is nothing.”