NRL sent Sportsbet please explain over Todd Carney ad

NRL issues Sportsbet with a ‘please explain’ over TV ad that makes light of Todd Carney’s notorious ‘bubbler’ controversy

  • NRL officials reportedly angry at Sportsbet’s use of Todd Carney in advertising
  • The betting agency has used Carney in latest marketing campaign for the app
  • NRL officials have reportedly contacted Sportsbet to share their ‘discontent’ 
  • The marketing makes light of incident which saw Carney kicke dout of the NRL 

Officials from the NRL’s head office have reportedly fired off a please explain to one of its major sponsors after it employed a former player in their latest ad campaign. 

Sportsbet launched a new campaign letting people know their new app is a ‘piece of p***’ with former NRL bad boy Todd Carney as the face. 

Carney was booted from the NRL in 2014 after a photo leaked of him performing a ‘bubbler’ on a drunken night out. 

The ‘bubbler’ is when a man attempts to drink his own urine while urinating as high in the air as he can, mimicking a water fountain. 

‘Even whizzkid Todd Carney can use it,’ the narrator says as Carney stands in the frame with a urinating statue nearby.

‘Yeah piece of p***,’ Carney than says. 

Sportsbet launched a new campaign letting people know their new app is a ‘piece of p***’ with former NRL bad boy Todd Carney as the face

Carney was booted from the NRL in 2014 after a photo leaked of him performing a 'bubbler' on a drunken night out

Carney was booted from the NRL in 2014 after a photo leaked of him performing a ‘bubbler’ on a drunken night out 

The advertisement has put NRL officials offside, The Daily Telegraph reported. 

The reports claims the NRL was left fuming with their number one betting partner using an incident which damaged the code’s reputation as a marketing tool.  

On Sunday, Carney wrote an open letter for Nine News explaining the incident and its aftermath.  

He said he woke up the night after the photo was taken to see his phone had ‘blown up’ as the picture was going viral. 

‘I’d clearly done something inappropriate, but … no one was hurt by my actions – they were just dumb, plain and simple,’ he wrote.  

Carney said he was pictured without his knowledge or consent and also pointed out the damage one moment on a drunken night out can do to a life and career

Carney said he was pictured without his knowledge or consent and also pointed out the damage one moment on a drunken night out can do to a life and career

Carney said he was pictured without his knowledge or consent and also pointed out the damage one moment on a drunken night out can do to a life and career. 

‘But people do stupid things every day and, in most cases, they are forgiven and forgotten and they can get on with their lives without their reputations and careers in tatters,’ he wrote. 

At the time, he begged then NRL chief executive Steve Noyce not to sack him over the incident.

‘I knew if they did it would effectively end my career in Australia, if not everywhere. He promised me that everything would be okay, that it would just blow over and, silly me, I believed him,’ he wrote. 

After being sacked from the NRL Carney went on to play Catalans Dragons in the Super League in 2015 and 2016 before moving to the Salford Red Devils in 2017 and then the Hull Kingston Rovers in 2018. 

He now plays for the Byron Bay Red Devils on the NSW far north coast.  

Daily Mail Australia has contacted the NRL for comment.  

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk