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Former Australia rugby captain Rocky Elsom was sentenced to two years in prison by a French court on Friday for misusing corporate assets during his time as club president of Narbonne.
He was also fined 100,000 euros ($109,000) with half the sum suspended. The 42-year-old Elsom did not appear in court. His whereabouts are unknown and a French arrest warrant has been issued against him.
He played 75 times for Australia from 2005-11, earning a reputation as a standout flanker.
Elsom was president of southern French club Narbonne from 2015-16. He went on trial for embezzling club funds by making unjustified expenditures to pay a coach or a general manager who was living in Australia at the time. He was acquitted on charges of forgery and use of forgery but was ordered to pay 230,000 euros in compensation to the club’s liquidator.
His lawyer Yann Le Bras appealed.
During a trial last month, the prosecutor requested a three-year prison sentence and a fine of 630,000 euros ($687,000). Elsom's lawyer had pleaded for an acquittal.
In a previous trial in October last year, Elsom was sentenced to five years in prison but did not attend the hearing.
He has been the subject of an international arrest warrant since that conviction. As allowed by French law, Elsom requested to be retried with legal representation, but he did not appear in court last month.
Fled Ireland
Elsom was named man of the match when he won the 2009 European Cup with Dublin-based Irish club Leinster alongside Ireland greats Johnny Sexton and Brian O’Driscoll.
He had been living in Ireland since August 2024 and fled the country after an international arrest warrant was issued against him. He denied any wrongdoing and said that under his leadership Narbonne was in a healthy position.
“(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 a statement in October. “It seems that I have been targeted as a scapegoat for the future mismanagement of this famous rugby club.”
Narbonne won the French Championship twice in 1936 and 1979 and finished runner-up three times. The club went into liquidation in 2018 and now competes in the third-tier Fédérale league.
Elsom had been working as a coach at a school in Dublin around the time of his arrest warrant. Elsom said in an interview four months ago on YouTube that he left immediately with only a single backpack when he found out that Ireland was legally obliged to extradite him to France.
When he gave the interview to Mark Bouris from a hidden location, he said he had not been informed there was a public trial in October.
“This s a really important part of it. I didn't know a court case was on and there was no possible way for me to know,” he said. ___
AP Sports Writer Jerome Pugmire in Paris contributed.
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AP rugby: https://apnews.com/hub/rugby
