NRL Extends Spencer Leniu Eight Matches Ban After Posting a Funny Photo of Latrell Mitchell Today…

Spencer Leniu said he thought his slur against Ezra Mam was just “one brown man saying something to another brown man”, before he was banned for eight matches by the NRL judiciary.

The Sydney Roosters prop admitted to the judiciary on Monday night he told Mam to “fuck up you monkey” during a verbal stoush in the Las Vegas season-opening double-header against Brisbane.

But in a 90-minute hearing at the NRL’s Sydney headquarters, Leniu also said he did not know the racial connotations of the term and only learned of them the following morning.

He said players of colour in NRL squads regularly called each other terms such as “blacky”, “monkey” and “black cunt”, and therefore he did not realise it would be offensive.