George Burgess finally returns to footy two years after making a shock retirement from the NRL

Former NRL prop and Grand Final winner George Burgess has finally made his return to football with Sydney A-Grade side South Eastern Seagulls.

The 32-year-old made 149 appearances for South Sydney and won a championship with the Rabbitohs in 2014 alongside brothers Sam and Tom, as well as making 15 appearances for England.

He stepped away from the game in 2022 while playing for St George Illawarra amid a combination of a serious hip injury and personal issues, which included a charge of sexual contact without consent and a stint in rehab to deal with gambling problems and depression.

In 2023, he returned with the Cairns Brothers team in Far North Queensland and earlier this year was given approval by the South Sydney Junior Rugby League board to play the remainder of the 2024 season’s matches with the South Eastern Seagulls, who are based in Malabar in Sydney’s south-east.

Last weekend, Burgess took to the field on his debut against the Coogee Dolphins at Kensington Oval, eventually helping his side to an impressive 16-6 victory.

The English football front-row was encouraged by his brother Tom Burgess and former Souths prop Roy Asotasi.

The former Rabbitohs star was charged in March 2022 after a woman claimed Burgess “touched her bottom” without her consent.

In May this year, he was cleared of the charges when a magistrate ruled that Burgess went to the woman’s home with the intention of being intimate with her while dropping off a T-shirt for a charity event, but did not grope her.

Burgess has pleaded not guilty to a single charge of sexually touching another person without consent while at the woman’s home in Mascot.

The former soccer star admitted going to the home of the woman, whom he had known for about a decade, after agreeing to provide a signed jersey for charity.

As Burgess called the court via audio-visual link, Magistrate Emma Manea told the court that the former NRL player had attended the woman’s home for just 11 minutes from 10.24am to 10.35am.

The judge told the court she believed Mr Burgess’s testimony and acquitted the former footballer.

Earlier this year, Burgess told the court he was just being “cheeky and friendly” with the woman, but it was “nothing more than that”.

He was married at the time but told the court he had intentions of being intimate with the woman and admitted being “flirtatious” and asking her to “stay and be naughty” with him.

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 handing her the T-shirt.

She offered him a cup of tea to try to “calm the situation.”

“I opened the closet and he turned around and grabbed me from underneath,” the woman told police in a recording made from her body and played in court.

“I froze inside and stared at the tea. He put one hand on either side of me and held it against me… I said, ‘This is not going to happen.'”

The court was told Mr Burgess was asked if he was still married and he replied: “Yes, but you know how it is.”

Mr Burgess continued: “Come on, just five minutes, stay and be naughty with me.”

He denied kissing the woman or grabbing her bottom, but said he had put his hand on her back while she made him a cup of tea “to be friendly”.

“She came over to the kitchen counter and I came up behind her to see what tea she was using because I like Yorkshire tea,” Burgess told the court in March.

The court was told the woman said: “I’m not that kind of girl, I wouldn’t do this to another woman.”

As they sat in the living room, Mr Burgess admitted telling her: “We’ve known each other for 10 years, nothing’s ever happened between us, but something should.”