Controversy
Gower has been involved in a number of alcohol-related off-field incidents.
In 1999, Gower exposed himself to a female Irish tourist in a Coogee bar, blaming his behaviour on alcohol intoxication. He was dumped from the Kangaroos squad and fined A$2,500 by the NRL and a further A$500 in court after pleading guilty to indecent exposure.
Gower was fired as Panthers captain in December 2005, after incidents at a charity golf event where he argued with several guests, groped the teenage daughter of former league player Wayne Pearce, chased Mitchell Pearce with a bottle before vomiting on him, streaked nude around the resort, stole and crashed a golf cart, held a butter knife to the throat of a Sydney radio personality before throwing it at resort guests, and engaged in a brawl with resort security before being ejected from the official function and detained by police. Gower was handed a "final warning" by the National Rugby League and fined A$100,000, with A$90,000 to be paid to an NRL programme encouraging the responsible use of alcohol by league players and A$10,000 to replace the destroyed golf cart. Gower was "deeply unhappy" that the Penrith Panthers club did not defend his reputation, and at one stage threatened to "walk" from the club.
Allegedly inebriated with alcohol in a bar at Kings Cross on 11 February 2007, Gower allegedly tried to kiss one man before biting him on the neck and sparking a brawl, and is accused of assaulting another man. The Panthers club controversially reappointed Gower as captain in 2007, claiming the Peppermint Lounge incident was just a media "beat-up".
Australian swimmer Dawn Fraser said Gower was unfit to be captain, due to his alleged lewd behaviour at the charity golf event which she attended, and Sarah Maddison, spokesperson for the Women's Electoral Lobby, said "reappointing Craig Gower would send all the wrong messages."
Read more about this topic: Craig Gower
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)