James Tedesco incident sparks million-dollar World Cup warning

Rugby league World Cup organisers have been warned they could be left facing a massive legal bill if a star player is badly injured crashing into objects outside England's tiny playing arenas.

The warning comes after Australian skipper and Roosters superstar James Tedesco took out a TV camera as he attempted to prevent a Fijian try in the Kangaroos' World Cup opener at St Helens on the weekend.

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Tedesco comes across in cover and collects the camera, which is only about a metre behind the dead-ball line.

There was some padding around the camera base and Tedesco was uninjured on this occasion, but previous Australian teams have raised concerns about the lack of space outside the playing areas.

Luke Lewis missed Australia's run to the 2013 World Cup title after he crashed into an advertising hoarding and dislocated his left shoulder while scoring a try in an early pool game against Fiji.

The injury not only robbed the Sharks backrower of a winning medal but kept him out of the first 14 rounds of the 2014 NRL season.

Brett Morris also damaged a hip and was unable to play on after slamming into an advertising sign at Old Trafford during the 2013 final.

Leading compensation lawyer and Wests Tigers chairman Lee Hagipantelis believes World Cup officials are leaving themselves wide open to legal action should a player be seriously injured after colliding with an off-field object.

"The proximity of the players and the playing of the game to the surrounds is of a kind that it would have to be foreseeable a player could slide into a fence or a cameraman and suffer serious injury," he told Radio SEN.

"I think they are running a seriously, seriously high risk of some litigation being brought if a player does suffer an injury of that kind, given that it has to be foreseeable that it can occur."

Luke Lewis talks about World Cup injury

Lewis revealed he had been approached to instigate legal action after his injury.

He told Yahoo Sports Australia: "When I did mine, so many people reached out to me saying 'hey, you should be suing them and doing this and doing that'.

"But it's a game that I love and I'm not going to go and hammer a game I love.

"You're not thinking about getting injured in that very heat of the moment. You want to score a try for Australia and you're flat out going for it."

But Lewis added: "I would hate to see someone get injured and miss the rest of this tournament.

"If the World Cup organisers can stop someone from getting hurt and also save themselves getting into a legal battle, it’s worth doing something to protect players.

"If there's a million-dollar player and he gets injured doing something like that, there would be hell to pay from his club."

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