(if Carney’s rugby career is over, there’s always food blogging)
With apologies to West Ham United (if not Michael Jackson) for the above headline, some you might recall a Vice item from earlier this month that alleged the practice of urinating into one’s own mouth, dubbed “bubbling”, was a full-blown craze within the Australian skating community. Earlier today, Deadspin reported that Cronulla Sharks halfback/fullback Todd Carney’s 5 year contract with the NRL side was terminated after a photo of the 28 year-old pissing into his own wide open mouth was circulated via social media. In the view of Sydney Morning Herald columnist Brad Walter, Carney was a pissing ticking time-bomb waiting to go off :
Throughout his career, officials, coaches and teammates at the Raiders, Roosters and Sharks have stood by the talented playmaker and each time he has let them down.
No other club is again likely to do so after a string of misdemeanours that include drink driving and driving while disqualified after a police chase in Canberra, allegedly urinating on the head and neck of another patron at an ACT bar, damaging a vehicle he jumped on in Goulburn, another drink driving charge at the Roosters and breaching a player-enforced alcohol ban that led to his sacking from the club.
As a result, Carney has been banned from his home town of Goulburn for a year, warned by a judge that he would go to jail if he was convicted by another court, sacked from the Raiders and Roosters, deregistered by the NRL and banned from playing Super League in England because of his criminal offences.
It is understood he did not upload the photo circulating on social media but Carney has already been linked to a bizarre apparent craze known as ‘‘bubbling’’. It is a story that will travel around the world in the same way as John Hopoate’s finger poking antics and Joel Monaghan’s simulated sex act with a dog.