Referee Ashley Klein must stand down from Wednesday night’s second State of Origin match, now that the NRL has refused to sack him from the code’s showpiece game, despite his gambling problems escalating significantly under the watch of the current administration.
Rugby league is on the eve of signing the richest broadcasting deal in Australian sport at a time when the credibility of the code is under siege after this masthead revealed the NRL’s top referee had a $400,000 gambling problem. Yet, Klein has been appointed to officiate a game watched by four million viewers, where one wrong call could decide…