To understand how it came to this, it helps to go back to the beginning, or at least back to 2007, when Folau first began to dazzle anyone who saw him handle a football. That year Folau debuted with Melbourne Storm and blew everyone’s minds. He scored a match winning try in his first game and went on to win the Dally M rookie of the year award. He still holds the record for most tries scored in a rookie season and that year he won a premiership with the Storm (later stripped) and was the youngest player to be named in an Australian squad. And Folau, who became known to be as gentle off the field as he was ferocious on it, went on to fulfil his staggering promise. The magic held. After three years at the Storm he experimented (unimpressively) with AFL at the GWS Giants and in 2012 joined the Waratahs – and that year he scored twice in his first game for the Wallabies. It is difficult to exaggerate how important Folau came to be for Rugby Australia, the governing body of a code which has been struggling to grow in a market more crowded than any other against the AFL, NRL and football. Folau though had crossover appeal, not only for his own startling athletic charisma, but for the fact that he had played in two of those other codes.

Though it has struggled domestically, Australian rugby has an international sway the other domestic codes can only dream of. The Wallabies can sell out stadiums from Cape Town to Cardiff. In those stadiums too, Folau has been the star Australian attraction. That sort of global attention is valuable. The ARL and NRL might enjoy the generous support of outfits like Bob Jane T-Marts, but the ARU has international brands such as Qantas and Range Rover as its “partners”. And while Folau’s star rose, his startling humility seemed fixed in place. The boy who grew up Mormon didn’t drink or smoke, or take drugs, or go out on the booze with his teammates. He stayed true to his God and to his family and in particular to his influential father, Eni, who early in his career controlled his finances and even his access to a prepaid mobile phone. 'Promoting discrimination': Israel Folau's campaign lasted four days on the GoFundMe site. Credit:AP He became, as Good Weekend magazine put it in a 2015 profile, rugby union’s “saviour and patron saint – a saint with the world’s best sidestep.”

As Folau saw it, God maintained a constant, immediate and interventionist presence in his life, going so far as to break his ankle during an NRL game against the NZ Warriors in 2009 because he was becoming arrogant, as he told the Good Weekend. Around the time Folau was suffering through his unhappy stint in the AFL – a stint that saw him indulge in a period of intemperance – he and his family left the Mormon church and recentered their faith in Pentecostalism. Today Folau preaches in the church that his father founded, which is now based in Kenthurst, and serves as pastor. Loading The first sign that the family’s convictions might clash with RA’s valuable and determinedly inclusive brand came during the marriage equality debate in 2017, when Folau said publicly that he would vote against the extension of marriage rights in Australia. The public comments were quietly noted by Rugby Australia. In April the following year, Folau was asked during an Instagram exchange what God’s “plans” for gays were. ‘‘Hell,” he responded. “Unless they repent of their sins and turn to God.’’

This time Rugby Australia acted, calling in Folau and his representatives for talks, telling, the organisation now says, in clear terms that under his contract he was free to express his religious beliefs but not to address any group in society with disrespect. A spokesman told the Herald at the time that Folau’s views did not reflect those of Rugby Australia, which supported, “all forms of inclusion whether it’s sexuality, race or gender’’. Reporting of the event noted that RA’s key sponsor was Qantas, whose chief executive, Alan Joyce, had personally donated $1 million to the yes campaign during the referendum on same-sex marriage. Since then RA has said that all of its sponsors have voiced concern about Folau’s remarks. Rugby Australia now says that it was this incident and the meetings it held with Folau afterwards that forced it to take tougher action when, in April this year, Folau posted a meme which listed various groups including ‘‘homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves’’ along with the words, “WARNING: HELL AWAITS YOU. REPENT. ONLY JESUS SAVES”. Israel Folau after the June 28 conciliation hearing at the Fair Work Commission in Sydney. Credit:AAP

According to one Rugby Australia insider, in the hours after the meme was posted, senior staff were unable to raise to Folau by phone or social media, nor would he answer the door at his home. Rugby Australia quickly announced its intention to cancel Folau’s contract unless “compelling mitigating factors’’ arose. Later News Corp reported that Folau had considered removing the post to save his career until his father warned him, “You’ll go to Hell son.” In a subsequent disciplinary hearing, Rugby Australia alleged Folau was guilty of 10 breaches of his contract. The independent panel upheld seven counts, including a high level breach, which led to Folau’s termination. Rather than appeal the decision, Folau opted to head straight to the Fair Work Commission. In the subsequent weeks, Folau’s case became central to the culture wars that have marked Australia’s civic life for years now.

His wife, netballer Maria Folau, even forced division in her sport after supporting her husband’s efforts to raise money on social media. Many of those on the left, some clearly appalled by Folau’s view on homosexuality, sided with Rugby Australia, which insists he has been dismissed not for voicing his religious beliefs but for breaching his contract. But many on the right, including the Australian Christian Lobby – which has taken up the fundraising torch for Folau and hold a $2 million war chest for his legal defence – are equally determined that RA has interfered with Folau’s right to give voice to his most elemental personal beliefs. Either way, Folau’s contract will not be enforceable if the Fair Work Commission finds that it contravenes Australian workplace law. Loading

Perhaps the most interesting arguments in the public debate have come from those who have crossed their own known – or presumed – ideological lines. The former Human Rights Commissioner, Gillian Triggs, herself a former target of Folau’s conservative supporters, has voiced her support for him. “My own view, and it is a purely personal view,” she told the ABC, “is that he should be entitled to put his view. I think it is really foolish and disproportionate to prevent him from preaching something that I think he probably believes quite deeply as a matter of religious expression.” Similarly the leading workplace lawyer – and atheist – Josh Bornstein, argues Folau’s case illustrates a dangerous tendency in Australia of employment contracts infringing upon people’s personal liberty. Bornstein says he accepts criticism that the argument of Folau and his supporters – that the footballer is not engaged in vilification but merely “warning” sinners – might be meaningless to those hurt by his language. But he says that if people want to see such speech curtailed they should lobby to have it done by legislation rather than via workplace law. We should not be ceding the regulation of speech to corporations, he argues. He believes that should the case progress as far as the High Court, it might redefine the relationship between employers and employees in Australia.

And of finding himself aligned with some of the nation’s better known conservative commentators?

“Let’s be clear, the free speech warriors of the right are almost without exception complete hypocrites. Their commitment barely lasts longer than the life of a tweet, as soon as it becomes inconvenient because someone of the left says something they oppose they jettison that commitment and become vigilantes.” Folau “doesn’t pass our inclusive test," the Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter Beattie has said of the former Wallaby. Credit:AAP The pollster Peter Lewis, who has recently published a book, Webtopia, about the cultural fractures the internet has caused over recent years, says the debate has not always been conducted with maturity but will probably end up being beneficial. “When it finishes there could be a much clearer set of principals about what an employee can say on social media, and to what extent we consider social media to be a public or private space,” he says. All that seems certain so far is that the Wallabies will compete in this year’s World Cup without their most valuable player and that Folau may find it hard to regain the trust of any other sporting outfit.

The Australian Rugby League Commission chairman, Peter Beattie, has declared that Folau “doesn’t pass our inclusive test” while even the owner of a French rugby union team recently dismissed him as a “moron”. Devine put this down to the “tentacles of virtue tyranny” in a recent column, though there is no evidence that it is not the result of a simpler sporting dictate codified over recent years by the All Blacks as the No Dickheads Policy. Beyond all else, it seems, team sports demand team players.