- Former Wallabies captain Rocky Elsom is currently in hiding
- He handed down a five-year prison sentence for misuse of corporate assets.
- He was previously president of the French rugby club Narbonne.
Former Wallabies captain Rocky Elsom is officially in hiding after he left Ireland for fear of being extradited to France on a European arrest warrant.
It comes after Elsom, 41, who earned 75 caps for the Wallabies, was recently sentenced in absentia to five years in prison for misappropriating corporate assets during his tenure as president of French rugby club Narbonne.
The explosive allegations include that Elsom backdated the contract of a club doctor, that a payment from brewing giant Heineken was illegally transferred to a company in his name and that he also agreed to salary advances for players.
Elsom was found guilty of forgery and ordered to repay €705,000 ($1.1 million) from his time at the club between 2015 and 2016.
He has denied any wrongdoing and his current whereabouts are unknown.
“All I can say is that I spoke to the gardai (Irish police) and they told me that if I am in Ireland they will have to bring me,” Elsom told the Sydney Morning Herald.
‘The important thing for me to remember is that if I am in custody, my defense becomes much more expensive and much more difficult.
“If they arrest me, I will have to hire a lawyer to do everything for me, all the phone conversations, to try to find documents, to talk to people, to try to defend myself.”
Former Wallabies captain Rocky Elsom is officially in hiding after leaving Ireland for fear of being extradited to France on a European arrest warrant.
Elsom, 41, was recently sentenced to five years in prison for his alleged conduct when he was president of French rugby club Narbonne between 2015 and 2016.
The former Wallabies captain (right) played 75 test matches for the Wallabies, 22 of them as captain.
In terms of potentially being recognized in public, Elsom admitted: “I’ll have to go out at some point, but I’ll keep my head down, that’s for sure.”
Before hastily leaving Ireland, Elsom was coaching at a school in Dublin and loved the fact that his rugby program was only in its infancy.
“It’s not like you’re walking into a Joeys (St Joseph’s College in Sydney’s Hunters Hill) or a Nudgee (College),” he said.
“They were facing much bigger teams and they were just part of them, they were on the field all the time, doing weight sessions, doing reviews with them… it was great to be there.
“It was something that had been missing (in my life) for a long time.”
Elsom is also a decorated figure at Irish club Leinster, which he helped win the 2009 Heineken Cup final.
Before signing with the NSW Waratahs in 2003, the Australian Schoolboys rugby star played Jersey Flegg rugby league for the Bulldogs alongside future football legends such as Johnathan Thurston and Sonny Bill Williams.