The NRL may look to stop Greg Bird from continuing his rugby league career in the UK Super League if the Sharks star is found guilty of glassing his girlfriend in the face.
The Cronulla lock forward has been stood down indefinitely by his club in the wake of allegations he assaulted his American girlfriend Katie Milligan last Sunday at his Cronulla unit.
The Sharks are likely to tear up the Test and Origin star's contract regardless of the outcome of his October 8 court date, and the NRL has indicated they may ban Bird for life if he's found guilty, leaving his NRL career in limbo.
And now it appears the NRL are going to look make any ban on Bird international, stopping Bird from resurrecting his career in England
NRL chief executive David Gallop has confirmed there are rules within the International Rugby League Federation to allow such bans to span countries.
"There's already a reciprocatory rule in the International Federation rules governing judiciary suspensions and doping suspensions," Gallop told News Limited.
"However, it's too early to speculate how that would affect this situation. Generally we haven't applied those rules to behavioural situations."
Gallop initially explored the option of working with the RFL to enforce an NRL ban when it looked as though former Raiders star Todd Carney may ignore Canberra's punishment for a string of alcohol related incidents, and seek to continue his career overseas.
RFL executive chairman Richard Lewis has indicated a willingness to work with the NRL on such issues.
"Our position on anything like this is it's essentially sub judice," Lewis said. "The guy's got a court case and until that's decided, he's innocent until proven guilty.
"However, the NRL and the RFL work very closely together and if we have a particular situation to deal with, we'll deal with it."
