Lawyers acting for Nathan Cleary are exploring civil and criminal proceedings after the Penrith superstar’s image was fraudulently used to endorse products without his consent.

Cleary, one of Australian sport’s biggest names, is constantly in demand from premium brands keen to associate with him. The NSW halfback is selective about which firms he is prepared to partner with to protect his image and focus on football.

However, it hasn’t stopped several companies from illegally attempting to cash in on his celebrity.

Perhaps the most brazen attempt occurred just hours after Wednesday night’s State of Origin decider, won 24-12 by Queensland at Accor Stadium. In the adjoining P1 car park at Sydney Olympic Park, hundreds of punters returned to their cars to find a pamphlet placed on their windshield.

It depicted a digitally altered image of Cleary, with his arm draped around a woman – not his current partner, Mary Fowler – apparently spruiking a company selling rugby league-themed car bonnet covers.

“Way to go Blues! I knew this one had rizz! I’m taking this one home!” the flyer says suggestively in bold letters, before adding, “This flyer was printed a week ago.”

At no stage did the firm seek permission from Cleary or his management to use his likeness, nor has there been any attempt to compensate him.

The image shows Cleary wearing a Blues jersey which appears to have been doctored, given the sponsors depicted aren’t those aligned with the team. The lawyer acting for Cleary, Daniel McGirr, said the incident would become a police matter.

“It’s a disgrace what they’re doing with these guys’ brands,” McGirr said. “There’s a couple of avenues that will go down the track of. One of them is civilly, but they are also obtaining a benefit by deception, which is criminal. We don’t know who is affiliated with these brands – or whether they are real brands to start with.

“They might be scams. Say the punter on the street thinks, ‘Nathan Cleary is aligned to this, I trust him and he’s my hero.’ They click on it, and they could be taken to some dark web or something like that and get scammed. It’s a criminal matter. With AI, this will get worse and worse until something is done about it.”

It’s not the first instance where Cleary’s intellectual property has been infringed to fraudulently sell merchandise. Cleary’s manager, George Mimis, fired off a letter to AussieSportswear earlier this year warning the company to stop selling apparel bearing his image, or that of their other clients, including Darren Lockyer and Billy Slater.

“You have no approval or authorisation by our Talent to use their name, image, likeness, or indeed any of their intellectual property (original or otherwise), for commercial gain,” the letter, dated June 4, 2025, states.

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“Not only was there no consent, but our Talent had no knowledge at all that their images were being used.”

In the letter, Mimis cites misleading and deceptive conduct clauses under Australian Consumer Law he feels the firm breached in the missive. He also demands that all marketing materials are taken down, that the sale of the merchandise ceases and that the firm must “destroy all inventory/stock featuring our Talent and provide to us within seven (7) business days, photographs/videos showing the destroyed goods” by June 12, 2025.

Despite a follow-up email on June 23, the firm hasn’t complied. An ASIC search shows the company was deregistered in 2017.

“We take these matters extremely seriously given the deception that is portrayed can mislead fans into being duped into scam products and schemes,” Mimis told this masthead. “We defend the reputations of our talent extremely highly.”

Cleary isn’t the only victim of that firm’s unauthorised sale of merchandise. The website also purports to sell hoodies, beanies, shoes, watches, jerseys and other paraphernalia with either athlete images or club branding.

Latrell Mitchell, Cody Walker, Cameron Smith, Tom Trbojevic, Jonathan Thurston, Wally Lewis, Josh Papali’i and Daly Cherry-Evans are just some of the league stars to have been targeted, while AFL and other Australian sports have also experienced the problem: there is even a shower curtain for sale featuring images of former Swans star Buddy Franklin.

There are countless examples of consumers being duped after purchasing goods from websites fraudulently offering products that are never delivered.

“There’s a bigger story here about protecting the players as well,” McGirr said. “Something needs to be done from an NRL perspective, because the NRL merchandising section should be the most concerned.”

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