{"id":116505,"date":"2025-05-20T07:40:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T07:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/116505\/"},"modified":"2025-05-20T07:40:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T07:40:11","slug":"sonny-bill-williams-attacks-paul-gallen-over-drugs-in-sport-and-accuses-him-of-a-shocking-act-with-his-former-nrl-teammates-as-rivals-hammer-each-other-ahead-of-footy-fight-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/116505\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonny Bill Williams attacks Paul Gallen over drugs in sport and accuses him of a shocking act with his former NRL teammates as rivals hammer each other ahead of footy fight night"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sonny Bill Williams<\/a> has launched a scathing attack on Paul Gallen over alleged use of performance enhancing drugs, as the long-awaited heavyweight showdown between the pair is finally locked in.<\/p>\n

After years of back and forth, the former NRL<\/a> stars have agreed to the super-fight which will be held at\u00a0Sydney<\/a>‘s Qudos Bank Arena on July 16.<\/p>\n

Gallen, 43, was supposed to front a press conference on Tuesday, but instead snubbed the event, telling fans via social media that he ‘didn’t want to steal Sonny’s thunder’.<\/p>\n

‘Hey guys, right about now, I’m supposed to be at the press conference for me vs Sonny Bill Williams, but clearly I’m not,’ Gallen said in an Instagram post.<\/p>\n

‘You see, this whole negotiation process has been about Sonny, so I thought I’d leave it that way. You know, I wanted to fight early in the year. Sonny wanted to fight later in the year because it didn’t suit him, so we’re fighting later in the year.’<\/p>\n

The former Blues skipper also teased Williams about wanting rounds less than three minutes, before signing off.<\/p>\n

\"Sonny <\/p>\n

Sonny Bill Williams (pictured) slams Paul Gallen over alleged use of performance enhancing drugs in fiery press conference<\/p>\n

\"SBW\u00a0have <\/p>\n

SBW\u00a0have finally agreed to square off at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena on July 16.<\/p>\n

‘I hope you feel like I’ve wasted your time, mate, because I feel like you’ve wasted my time the past 10 years,’ he said.<\/p>\n

‘But finally, you built up the courage to jump in the ring with me. July 16, we’ll get it done.<\/p>\n

‘But you, you keep being a good boy, you keep doing what you’re told and I’ll give you some attention very, very soon. And I hope you train hard, because while I’m past my best, we all know that I’ve still got enough left in me to beat you.<\/p>\n

‘I’ll see you soon, champion.’<\/p>\n

Williams, 39, did the press conference on his own and put down Gallen’s absence to his fear of being tested for illegal performance enhancing drugs.<\/p>\n

‘I think he got word that the drug testers were going to be here today and ask him about the vitamins that he’s been on,’ Williams said.<\/p>\n

When questioned on if he felt disrespected by Gallen’s no-show, Williams unleashed a withering spray.<\/p>\n

‘I think when it comes to Paul – the last 10-15 years – he’s always attacked my character,’ he said.<\/p>\n

\"Paul <\/p>\n

Paul Gallen (pictured) was supposed to front a press conference on Tuesday, but instead snubbed the event<\/p>\n

\"Williams <\/p>\n

Williams has been training with world champion Jai Opetaia in preparation for the showdown<\/p>\n

‘For someone that has been involved in probably one of the biggest drug sporting scandals in the NRL to date – for someone that charges his own players $10 a head to come to a barbecue at his house – this type of character having a go at mine, I see that as a compliment.’<\/p>\n

When asked if there was a chance Gallen might not show up to the fight, Williams informed the press that he wasn’t worried about that.<\/p>\n

‘He definitely wants his pay cheque,’ Williams said.<\/p>\n

‘A lot of people around him haven’t seen his wallet for a long time so I know he will turn up for his pay cheque.’<\/p>\n

Williams last fought in 2022, suffering a shock knockout loss to MMA star Mark Hunt.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The Kiwi star believes Gallen is using ‘heavy vitamins’ as he prepares for the bout<\/p>\n

He told Daily Mail Australia that it was partly due to his training camp not being tough enough – something that he’s now addressing by training alongside boxing champion Jai Opetaia.<\/p>\n

‘My downfall in my last fight was probably the softness – and the way I took that fight mentally – I knew that [training alongside Opetaia] will probably get the best out of me,’ Williams said.<\/p>\n

The dual-code star was planning to stay in Queensland for the whole fight camp, but says it’s been hard with his young family.<\/p>\n

‘I’ve been coming back and forth,’ he said.<\/p>\n

‘I was going to try and stay up there the whole time but it’s tough. I’ve got five kids under ten.<\/p>\n

‘We don’t have a fulltime nanny or anything like that, so it’s been pretty demanding on the wife. The last few weeks have been pretty tough on her.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sonny Bill Williams has launched a scathing attack on Paul Gallen over alleged use of performance enhancing drugs,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,92,459,30118,52364,93,79,1862,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-116505","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-dailymail","10":"tag-instagram","11":"tag-nrl","12":"tag-sonny-bill-williams","13":"tag-sport","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-sydney","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114539031871017647","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}