Penrith Panthers star Api Koroisau’s past has caught up with him again just hours after his side beat the Parramatta Eels 28-12 in the NRL final.
Koroisau played a starring role as the Panthers won their second straight premiership on Sunday, but an off-field adventure has come back to haunt him.
A woman whose secret trysts with married Koroisau were exclusively revealed by Daily Mail Australia last year took to social media to say the player is ‘a cheater’.
‘He is… a cheater’, the woman wrote last week – in reference to her being smuggled into the football star’s hotel room during quarantine camp last year.
The woman (pictured) had a secret tryst with Penrith Panthers star Api Koroisau last year and has taken to social media to slam the whore
Api Koroisau (left) is pictured with his wife Amy, who he reconciled with after a cheating scandal
Koroisau was handed a two-match suspension and ordered to pay $50,000 after admitting he endangered the entire NRL competition when he snuck a woman he met online into his room at a State of Origin camp in 2021.
She said she was never contacted by the NRL to provide a statement about breaches of Covid-19 biosecurity protocols on two occasions.
Koroisau was dropped from the Origin squad and was widely criticized for his actions.
He later apologized, saying he had ‘hurt’ his wife and two daughters with his ‘selfish, thoughtless actions’.
But his past came flying back when the woman at the center of the scandal booked into the same hotel as the Panthers on Saturday night.
“Tell me Penrith are staying at your (sic) hotel without telling you they are,” she wrote on Instagram alongside footage of the team taken on Sunday morning.
Koroisau avoided the woman’s gaze as he and his teammates walked past her onto the team bus.
The player reconciled with his wife Amy after last year’s incident, but at the time she blamed both Koroisau and media coverage.
The woman Api Koroisau previously had a secret tryst with slammed him on Instagram (pictured)
The woman also posted footage of the Penrith players (pictured) checking into the same hotel as them the night before the NRL grand final
“While there have been some painful lies and misrepresentations in certain media reports, I do not believe it is in our family’s best interest to engage in it,” she said.
“Api is a great father and while this has hurt me tremendously, I have no doubt that he will put the necessary strategies in place to learn from this and better who he is.”
Being called ‘still a cheater’ wasn’t the only setback Koroisau has faced since the grand final.
Koroisau (pictured) avoided the woman’s gaze as he and his teammates walked past her onto the team bus
He was also criticized as ‘classless’ for comments he made during Penrith’s celebrations on Monday.
Koroisau, who is leaving Penrith to join Wests Tigers, was asked at Panthers Stadium how he felt about leaving the club.
‘This place has been incredible the last three years I’ve been here. It has become a family to me, he said.
“There’s so much young talent. To go out at such a height, it’s pretty incredible and I’ll probably do the same at the Tigers,” he said in a sarcastic tone before cracking up with laughter.
Api Koroisau was fined $50,000 and suspended for two matches after Daily Mail Australia exclusively revealed he allegedly put the entire NRL competition at risk by smuggling a woman he met on Instagram into the Blues hotel at two apartments. He is pictured with his wife Amy
Api Koroisau with his wife Amy, who stood by his side despite admitting to smuggling a woman he met on Instagram into the State of Origin camp
Paul Kent of Foxtel’s NRL 360 show said Koroisau and some other Panthers players ‘lacked class’ and ‘acted like teenagers’.
“It’s stupid, it’s really stupid to be honest … There’s a complacency and they’re truancy in their own party, Penrith,” he said.
‘Koroisau took the mickey out of the Tigers, who he is about to join next year. Where is the support and acceptance and recognition from the former Penrith teams?’
The woman who Koroisau cheated on last year said his punishment was not severe enough when he broke the game’s Covid bubble and covered it up for three weeks, despite seeing an opposition player get off over an almost identical misdemeanor.
“There was all the public shaming… but two weeks (ban) is nothing,” she said at the time.